Children of the Middle East

What are other people saying?
 

The following are things other people have written in letters to newspapers, politicians, church groups, human rights organizations and others.  You may find some of these ideas useful in your own letters.

The Use of Palestinian Children
How come the kids are out there committing these acts?  Where are the parents?
Why are children doing these things? Where are their parents and why aren’t they stopping them?

Using children for political goals is a disgrace, whether  in central Africa or in Gaza, and it has been outlawed by the UN.

Palestinian children are dressed in uniform; not only are there school camps for these activities, but they are praised openly – in daily TV broadcasts, on the Hamas website, and in the shouting crowds on the street. Is this how they really cherish peace…?

Why don’t Palestinian textbooks show pictures of the State of Israel… in any borders? 
 

Instead of using their schools to promote peace with their Jewish neighbors, the Palestinians consistently use the schools to fill their children’s heads with anti-Semitic stereotypes and anti-Israel propaganda. The “learning materials” promote hostility and intolerance rather than co-existence and understanding.

Even worse is the psychological warfare that the Palestinian Authority wages against its own children: it teaches them that Israel wants to kill them. It claims that Israeli aircraft drop poison candy in Gaza. Recently, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate banned journalists from photographing children who were taking part in military groups and activities; they claimed that such pictures could harm the Palestinian cause.

The Palestinian Authority, instead of teaching its children to put down their guns, tells foreign journalists they must put down their cameras. Is this the kind of education that will bring true and lasting peace to the Middle East?
The key to a true lasting peace in the Middle East is in the education of the next generation of Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

   

Why are Arafat’s own wife and child living luxuriously in Paris, while he trains other men’s children to be suicide bombers?

Why does Arafat keep Palestinian children in squalor and raise them to be suicide bombers, while he protects his own child in Paris, in the lap of luxury?

Islamic-Jihad sponsored summer camps teach Palestinian children hate, not hope.

Islamic-Jihad sponsored summer camps glorify violence, not cooperation.

Incitement, hatred and martyrdom are the A,B,C's of Palestinian schools

Why are Palestinian children on the front line? Why aren't they safely in school?

Palestinian children are being exploited by Palestinian leaders in order to manipulate the media and in turn, world opinion.

How can the Palestinian’s claim they fight for their honour? Honourable people do not train their little children for the front line.

The Suffering of Israeli Children
Israeli civilians – civilians – have faced thousands of organized, violent and life-threatening attacks by Palestinians that have specifically and deliberately targeted women and children

I ask you, what possible explanation could defend the deliberate attack against teenagers at an Italian fast food restaurant, a children’s disco, a hotel lobby, an out-door café?  What is the justification for targeting women and children where they live and play?  There is an absolute moral difference between deliberate, random acts of terror against women and children and Israeli efforts to prevent this violence from occurring.

 

In Israeli schools, children are taught to empathize with the plight of the Palestinians. Unfortunately, there is less funding available for teachers today in Israeli schools, because that money needs to be used for other purposes: hiring more security guards, replacing windows with bullet-proof glass. This is not what school is all about… and yet, still, Israeli children are taught that the greatest aspiration is the pursuit of peace.

 

No mother should live in fear.  No mother should have to worry that when her daughter goes off to the store, she might be killed by a homicide bomber.  No parent should worry that when their children go for a hike, they might be tortured and brutally murdered.  Children should not be raised to kill or used as human shields.  The terrorism must stop.

Children have an inalienable right to get up every morning, go to school, ride a bus or play in the park without fear of death. Nothing can justify destroying their fundamental human rights.

If the Palestinians will so willingly sacrifice their own children, where could they possibly draw the line with other people's children?
Does the Palestinians’ willingness to sacrifice their own children show how much they respect others’ children?

Palestinians use their children as human shields, while Israelis shield their children from inhumanity.

Concluding lines
While I have spoken about Israeli casualties, I want to recognize those Palestinians that have been killed or wounded, because they are suffering as well.  I particularly want to reach out to Palestinian mothers who have lost their children.  No parent should have to bury their child.  

And so I say to my Palestinian colleagues …you can stop the bloodshed.  You can stop the suicide bombings.  If you really want to, you can put an end to this cycle of violence.  If you won’t do it for our children, do it for your children.” 

What are armed guards doing in kindergartens?
Should kindergarten children have to live with armed guards as classmates?

How can the world support a society that encourages its children to die and celebrates their successful completion of the task?

Europe must wake up and ask itself: If the Palestinians value human life, why are they putting their children in the front lines?

If a father really loves his child, would he ever place that child in harm’s way?

Don’t the Palestinians know that war is no place for children?

Either you respect life or you don't. There are no shades of gray when it comes to harming innocent children.

As a mother, I simply cannot understand how the world can rationalize or explain away the Palestinians’ treatment of their own children.

How can one mother be proud when her child takes the life of another mother’s child?

Israel is the model of government the UN was created to protect and nurture, yet this UN protection and nurturing does not extend to Israeli children.

When the UN General Assembly declared special protection for children, it was intended for all children.

Children growing up with violence are unable to conceive of a world with peace. Distrust and suspicion are all they know.

Hatred is easier to cultivate than peace because peace requires trust.

The trauma that these children experience will change them from hopeful and trustful to hopeless and hateful.

You cannot build a foundation for peace based on hate.

Hatred cannot be, and will never be, a cornerstone of peace.

Hatred undermines peace; it can never be the foundation for peace.


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