     Hakim | Friday, October 13, 2000 - 04:56 am
The Second Intifada: Israel's War With Children
by Emad Mekay with additional reporting by Samar Dewidar
Eleven-year-old Palestinian schoolboy Waleed Mashhour lies on his hospital bed and smiles innocently. White-robbed doctors have just untied stitches off a stomach injury caused by an Israeli bullet he sustained during, he says, "his work to liberate my land and protect the Aqsa mosque."
"I was only placing Palestinian flags on the borders between Gaza and Sinai [Egypt]," recounted Waleed, describing the moments before Israeli soldiers shot him.
"The Israelis were hiding and lurking for us somewhere. When I finished my flags I was shot. This was only my second time to throw stones and hang flags on the barbed wire."
Waleed was among several other Palestinians brought to Cairo for hospitalization after two weeks of violent clashes between Palestinian protestors and Israeli troops. Palestinian hospitals became over-crowed with scores of dead corpses and hundreds of injured people.
The clashes started on September 29th after militant Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon visited al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. The site is Islam's third holiest shrine. Sharon said he was paying the visit to assert Israel's sovereignty over the site, which Jews say, is holy to them as well.
The Nasser Institute Hospital, where Waleed is receiving treatment for his serious injuries has become a Mecca for school children, officials, celebrities and Palestinian sympathizers within Egypt, the most populous Arab Muslim state.
At the hospital, scores of housewives, university students and professionals flocked into the white crammed corridors of the hospital to donate blood, give presents to the wounded, express sympathy and provide encouragement.
Anger in the Islamic world has been mounting towards Israel's excessive use of force. Muslims and Arabs are rallying around the Palestinians. Many protests and marches went out in the streets of Cairo, Damascus, Jakarata and other Muslim nations in solidarity with what has now become known as "the Aqsa uprising."
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan have offered to receive injured protesters in their hospitals and many have sent medical and humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territories.
Mosques around the world have called for a Jihad and have distributed leaflets calling for "revenge."
Twenty-two Arab states will hold an emergency meeting in Cairo on October 21st to discuss the situation in the occupied territories to find a way to resuscitate the deadlocked Middle East peace process.
As Waleed fought his exhaustion and received guests, more visitors came in. A class of 31 uniformed schoolgirls, each with a flower, paid visits to the injured.
Heba, one of the students, explaining why she came, said, "We are here to say that injustices can never last."
"When our teacher suggested we come here, all of the girls said yes. I don't know of a single girl who said she wouldn't come."
This was a time to talk about "Israeli atrocities," and "ruthless methods." Words like "the aggressors," "the beasts," "liberation," and "freedom" were often heard.
Next to Waleed Mashhour's bed, was Ibrahim Abu Mor's, an eight-year-old schoolboy shot in the eye by an Israeli solider. His frail and childish voice came out clearly. "I was throwing stones," he said. "There was this Jew far away from me. He was pointing his rifle against me. He hit me in the eye. I didn't succeed to hang up my flag."
Waleed and Ibrahim not only seem to have a common past, but a similar future as well.
"When I go home I will throw them [the Jews] again with stones till they go away," Ibrahim said.
Waleed will do the same. "I will throw stones and lift up the flag… It's our land and we must get it back with our efforts, sweat and blood." |
| MAD MAC | Monday, October 16, 2000 - 12:07 am
What I want to know is what kind of parent would allow their children to engage in such activity??? Using your children like this is totally irresponsible. If you want to fight, do it yourself, don't send your kids to do it for you. The Palestinians know, the IDF doesn't play. You throw stones at them and they will throw bullets at you. Allowing children to participate in riots is criminal. You can certainly make an argument that the Israelis are using excessive force, however, that doesn't change the fact that using children in this way is morally reprehensible. |
| asad | Monday, October 16, 2000 - 06:25 am
"What I want to know is what kind of parent would allow their children to engage in such activity???"
again, blaming the victims and this kind of excuse is what the jewish and their helpers are known for. they want you to ignore the bigger picture. the blame is on the oppressors who come to the homes of these poor children and their parents. the parents did not take their kids to the jews homes in telviv.
"Allowing children to participate in riots is criminal. You can certainly make an argument that the Israelis are using excessive force, however, that doesn't change the fact that using children in this way is morally reprehensible."
if that is the case, for the jewish people to be in germany was a criminal when hitler was doing his things. for jewish people having children in germany was morally reprehensible and wrong and when hitler and his people used excessive force upon the jewish children that is because of the stupid jewish people who let them be there, right, mad mac? ;-) |
| MAD MAC | Monday, October 16, 2000 - 07:31 am
Asad
Your argument here is in a word, pathetic. The Jews in Germany were there for hundreds of centuries. I didn't say that Palestinian chldren living in Palestine or Israel for that matter is morally reprehensible. You make it sound like the IDF is going door to door, pulling kids out of the house and shooting them. In fact, the IDF is at guard posts demarcating different sectors (Paletinian and Jewish). The kids are then encouraged to throw rocks and molotov cocktails at the IDF positions. I have seen plenty of video already. In many cases you have kids mixed in with adults throwing stones or using slingshots. the IDF is not rounding up kids and telling them to start rioting. The rioters organize from safe havens (there are no Jews in down town Rumallah) and then march to the IDF positions and begin their primitive assaults (with children). Allowing children to participate in these activities in morally reprehensible. I can't believe you can't see that. The Jews who were slaughtered in WW II weren't throwing stones or anything else. If those kids even opened their mounths or looked cross-ways they were simply shot. Again, I'm not excusing the IDF, but the parents of those children have a responsibility for shielding them from such events if possible. Instead they are feeding them into the rioters like so much cannon fodder. I saw the same thing in Somalia, there's just no excuse for it. When violence begins you don't send your kid out there and say "Go git 'em Ibrahim." A responsible parent takes his kids and keeps them in the house until things are reasonably safe. |
| asad | Monday, October 16, 2000 - 08:35 am
"The Jews in Germany were there for hundreds of centuries"
and the palestinian people weren't in palestine for hundreds of centuries?!!! how pathetic can you be, mad mac? ;-)
"Instead they are feeding them into the rioters like so much cannon fodder."
if the palestinian parents feed their kids into cannon fodder in palestine, then the jewish parents in germany put their kids in the gas chambers, right, mad mac? ;-) |
| MAD MAC | Monday, October 16, 2000 - 10:17 am
Wrong Asad. Since your sense of European history is terible, allow me to elaborate for you. The Jews had no where to go. In fact, in 1938 a transport ship full of Jews tried to emigrate. The ship went everywhere, including America, in their effort to escape the Nazis (this was before the whole sale killing began). And no one would take them. Not in Palestine, not in England, not in America. They were forced to return to Germany where, surprise, surprise, they were killed in extermination camps. I can't believe you can't see the difference here. This one is obvious. The Jewish kids had no where to go (The Palestinian kids don't have to participate in riots). They were literally taken out of their homes at gun point (with their parents), shipped in rail cars (with no sanitation, water or food - bunches died just enroute) delivered to work camps (where they died slowly of malnutrition - starved and worked to death) or to extermination camps (where they died quickly of gassing or other forms of execution).
So what we have here is in Germany, Jews were rounded up and executed. What we have in Palestine is a situation where Palestinians organize themselves and then MOVE TO ISRAELI military positions and start attacking them - albeit crudely. Now, I'm not saying the Israelis haven't used excessive force (although I'm not sure how else one would expect any military force to respond), but what I am saying is THOSE KIDS SHOULD BE AT HOME, NOT THROWING ROCKS IN THE STREETS. If you were a parent in Palestine, would you allow your 10 year old to participate in riots when you know the IDF might well shoot your kid if he does so??? That is irresponsible parenting. You want to go out there and fight for your cause, fine. But leave the kids at home. It's not a family affair. The Palestinians are deliberately putting their kids on the streets, and it's disgraceful. You can blame the IDF for being heavy handed, but that does not absolve the parents from placing their children deliberately in harms way. It's like living on a street where the cars always drive too fast and letting your toddler play on the street anyway. When the kid gets killed, the driver is at fault for driving too fast, but the parent shouldn't have let the kid play on the street in the first place. |
| asad | Monday, October 16, 2000 - 10:57 am
"Wrong Asad. Since your sense of European history is terible, allow me to elaborate for you."
the jewish history says that their home land is israel.
"The Jews had no where to go."
so they died because of that, right? so where would the palestinian go now but die? ;-)
"I can't believe you can't see the difference here"
i see no diference what hitler did and what the israeli terrorists are doing now.
"What we have in Palestine is a situation where Palestinians organize themselves and then MOVE TO ISRAELI military positions and start attacking them - albeit crudely."
again, this is the propoganda of the jewish. palestinian people didn't move; the isreali terrorists and those who help them in their military came and are coming now to palestinian homes and are terrorizing innocent people and children. |
| MAD MAC | Monday, October 16, 2000 - 08:59 pm
What do you mean propaganda, I watched it with my own eyes. The crowds would assemble in a Palestinian controlled area and then moved to the Israeli outposts and started attacking them. Don't tell me what I saw and didn't see. |
| Hakim | Tuesday, October 17, 2000 - 12:33 am
MAD COW;
Don't you have any sort of human feelings even if you lack common men's understandings!!!!!!!!! You, Israelis soldiers, Palestinian soldiers(if any exists) ARE SOLDIERS !!! don't you see the differences??
what the hell they were doing inside the Palestinian territory? they were armed with bombs, and machine guns, doing what? Everybody know they were under-covered MOSSADs or other security stuffs, so don't feel sorry for them and if you do as Clinton we don't give dump of it. |
| asad | Tuesday, October 17, 2000 - 01:44 am
mad mad, the propaganda i'm talking about is blaming the victims. that is what the jewish and their friends are good at. palestinian people are not the aggressors. the isreali terrorists and those who help them military came and are the ones coming now to palestinian homes; the israeli terrorists are the ones terrorizing innocent people and children. |
