By: Tashbih Sayyed
He was young. In a red sweater and blue jeans, he could have been the objective of any mother's affections. But there was something wrong with his movement. For the Israeli soldiers at the West Bank checkpoint the 14 years old Palestinian boy seemed a little too nervous, a little too cautious. They were on high alert. Palestinian teenagers have taken part in attacks against Israelis. Just last week, troops at this same checkpoint had captured an 11-year-old boy with a bomb hidden in his bag. The red sweater or may be something else aroused their suspicion. They suspected that the 14 year old had something under his sweater.
Pointing their guns at him, they asked him to stop. The boy, raising his hands above his head, froze. Expecting the worst, the soldiers retreated behind large concrete barricades for safety. Hussam, the young boy, was then ordered to remove his sweater, which revealed a gray vest with explosives packed inside, the kind that is standard issue for Palestinian suicide bombers.
A small yellow robot was dispatched toward Hussam, that delivered some cutters to remove the vest. The vest bulging with explosives was heavy making it very difficult for the boy to bend over, reach the scissors and cut away the straps of the vest. A detonator cord dangling in front of his chest, Hussam called for the military to help. His face betrayed his fears. He said, he did not want to blow himself up. But nobody could take a chance to come near him. He was ordered to complete the job himself.
Hussam struggled a while and freed himself from the vest. The soldiers then ordered him to strip to his underwear to make sure he had no other weapons. The vest that was now lying on the ground was later detonated in a controlled explosion. It was obvious that the teenager was sent to blow himself up among the soldiers, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claim that it had dispatched the youth confirmed the fact.
Hussam's parents described him as a poor student who often skipped school and was a bit slow mentally. "Hussam left home this morning to school, and this was the first we heard of what happened," his mother, Tamam Abdo, told Reuters. "This is shocking. To use a child like this is irresponsible, forbidden." She voiced anger at militants who sent their son on a suicide bombing mission, saying the extremists had exploited a naive boy. The mother was in tears as she spoke of her anger. "It is forbidden to send him to fight," Tamam Abdo said. "He is young, he is small, he should be in school. Someone pressured him. "If he was over 18, I wouldn't feel so angry ... then it is his decision," she said. "We just want them to leave us alone," said the young boy's mother.
Observers have watched with skepticism some parents criticizing the abuse of children. While many in the West Bank and Gaza Strip still strongly support suicide bombings as a weapon against Israel, some have become critical of the militants' choice of attackers in several incidents this year. In January, a 17-year-old boy died when his bomb belt exploded prematurely, a week after his 15-year-old brother and a cousin were killed in clashes. No group claimed responsibility. A few days later, Hamas sent a 22-year-old mother of two young children to blow herself up at a crossing from Gaza into Israel, killing four Israelis.
In a radical Islamist controlled society open criticism of terrorists is still not common, consensus is valued and questioning the behavior of terrorist groups is seen as a betrayal. Because of the constant indoctrination and anti-Semitism, a majority of Palestinians are on the side of terror and those who are against it, have no choice but to remain silent for fear of retribution. Palestinian militants have killed 942 Israelis in more than 3 1/2 years of violence.
Experts believe, militant groups might be turning to children to fool the Israelis, who primarily watch for adult attackers. Children are easily recruited, because fighting Israel is almost a rite of passage here, they said. "This is a society where the only way to prove yourself is to fight against the Israeli occupation. There are no sports, no games.
In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, Abdo said his classmates had bullied him for years, teasing the youngster because he was small for his age. Abdo said he wanted to go to paradise. "A river of honey, a river of wine and 72 virgins. Since I have been studying Quran I know about the sweet life that waits there," the boy was quoted as saying.
Normally parents here praise their sons and daughters for carrying out suicide attacks, hailing them as heroes and martyrs. But now, one can also see many parents of teenage bombers expressing anger at the factions that had armed their children. Many of them are now expressing shame that children had become weapons in the hands of terrorists. "We have to carry out serious attacks," said Sadia Abdel Rahman, 42. "This is not a children's game. This is an embarrassment." Some neighbors said Hussam was a member of a militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. His parents said he attended rallies held by various factions but did not belong to any of them.
This latest Palestinian attempts to kill and maim Israelis was another example of their cynical use of innocent children. It seems that for the radical Islamists, children are no more than a disposable commodity. That's why it is so easy for them to turn the children into human time bombs. It is an everyday experience that the Islamists are ready to sacrifice their own children for the express purpose of inflicting terror upon others. Only a couple of fortnights ago, three boys, ages 13, 14 and 15, carrying homemade firearms were arrested by Israeli police. They were on their way to attack in the northern Israeli town of Afula. They had left a note in their home village expressing a desire to kill Israelis. On March 16, Israeli soldiers stopped the 11-year-old boy at the Hawara checkpoint who did not even know that he was carrying a bomb in his bag. Some Palestinian terrorist had given him the bag without telling him what is inside. The youth worked as a porter and carried many bags back and forth across the checkpoint without checking the contents.
Palestinian terrorism has become a subject of concern for every human right organization of the world. Condemning the Palestinian abuse of children, Amnesty International said, "Amnesty International has repeatedly condemned suicide bombings and other attacks against civilians by Palestinian armed groups as crimes against humanity. Using children to carry out or assist in armed attacks of any kind is an abomination. We call on the Palestinian leadership to publicly denounce these practices." Amnesty International insisted, "Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs's brigades, must put an immediate end to the use or involvement of any kind of children in armed activity."
According to Amnesty International, In the past three years there have been other cases in which Palestinian children have been used by Palestinian armed groups to carry out or attempt to carry out suicide bombings or other attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers.
In January a 17-year-old Palestinian detonated an explosive belt he was wearing as he was being tracked down by Israeli soldiers, killing himself and without hurting anyone else. He had reportedly been given the explosive belt by members of the Palestinian armed group Islamic Jihad.
Palestinian terrorist groups use many different methods of encouraging the youth to embrace the ways of terror. The most important method is of ensuring that an environment of hatred is maintained in the society. And the youths are kept in a perpetual state of anger. To accomplish this goal, radical Islamism as represented by Hamas, Hezbollah and other Arab terrorist groups make sure that no one in the society speak against their methods. There are reports that Palestinian armed groups have pressured families of those who have been killed while carrying out attacks, including children, not to condemn but to welcome and endorse their relatives' actions.
Hatred is a dilapidating human condition. A person afflicted with the condition loses the ability to be human. Hatred turns a human into a beast. Hate-filled mind, as the humanity has experienced, is more dangerous than the biggest weapon of mass destruction. Hate deprives a person of any sense of justice and balance - he loses his ability of independent thinking. He follows the terrorist preachers like a child following the pied piper. He becomes a tool in the hands of his or her manipulators. Hatred is also a kind of blindness that prevents the afflicted person to see and feel the sufferings of his victims.
Radical Islamists understand this phenomenon perfectly well. They understand that in order to create a perfect hate-filled mind, the seed of hatred has to be planted as early in one's life as possible. That's why they spend most of their time and energies in brainwashing the youngest into hating others. In a society controlled by radical Islamists, radicals provide the definition of this "Other." The young minds are told whom to hate and whom to kill. The power of hatred is supreme. For the radical Islamists, perpetuation of hatred is an ultimate recipe for manufacturing terrorists. Once graduated from these hate schools, these young ones become the most dedicated and the most motivated of holy worriers - the Jehadis. Afghanistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Sudan and the Middle East present the worst form of this ideology.
Radical Islamists abuse children in many different ways, They recruit them as soldiers in their wars as the Taleban did in Afghanistan. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan reported in 1999 that there were 2,000 - 5,000 new Taliban recruits, some of whom were younger than 14. People living in Muslim countries know that indoctrination of children starts as soon as they join a madrasa (religious school). These madrasa have been a rich source of child holly worriers. Pakistani madrasas supplied a very significant number of child Taleban soldiers. Cross-border recruitment and training with other armed groups is also a very common feature of international jihad. "Both sides of the civil war in Tajikistan, for instance, used child soldiers."
The worst abuse of children is taking place in the territories controlled by Palestinian Authority. Children are in particular encouraged to be on the forefront in attacking the Israeli forces. They use them as human shields as Hamas has been doing in Palestine. "The current violence has given the Palestinians the opportunity to improve on their widespread use of children in the original intifada of a decade ago and in other organized rioting during the interim years, such as in Hebron.
This time the children act as bait, burning tires and shooting slingshots, to attract the television cameras and distract the IDF, in tandem with well-armed Palestinian gunmen in ambush positions. Since the Palestinian public knows that Israeli soldiers are ordered not to shoot live ammunition at children, they act as shields to protect Palestinian snipers who shoot to kill any exposed members of the IDF. When the youth rush forward throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, Palestinian snipers on rooftops and in alleys take aim at the IDF, on some occasions actually shooting Palestinian children from behind. Alternatively, according to reliable sources, Palestinian gunmen have shot from within a rioting crowd of civilians."
The children play an integrated role in the battlefield strategies of the Palestinian Authority. USA Today correspondent Jack Kelley reported, "Children serve as infantry in the confrontations between Israeli and Palestinian soldiers. In scenes reminiscent of Iranian children sent to the Iraqi front equipped with plastic keys to heaven, Palestinian children are sent close to Israeli positions with rocks and Molotov cocktails, while the gunmen and snipers fire from positions hundreds of yards back." Children are brainwashed into becoming homicide bombers and children are used as the propaganda tools. In short for the radical Islamists, children are just a disposable commodity.
The role Palestinian Authority is playing in the encouragement of child abuse was underlined by the PA-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheik 'Ikrimi Sabri, in an October 28 interview with the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi:
Question: What do you feel when you pray [for the souls of the martyrs]?
Sabri: I feel the martyr is lucky because the angels usher him to his wedding in heaven....
Question: Is it different when the martyr is a child?
Sabri: Yes, it is. It's hard to express it in words. There is no doubt that a child [martyr] suggests that the new generation will carry on the mission with determination. The younger the martyr—the greater and the more I respect him....
Question: Is this why the mothers cry with joy when they hear about their sons' death?
Sabri: They willingly sacrifice their offspring for the sake of freedom. It is a great display of the power of belief. The mother is participating in the great reward of the Jihad to liberate Al-Aqsa.
"The message from the top, from PA Chairman Arafat, is unequivocal. Arafat ruthlessly encourages the involvement of Palestinian children in violence, referring to them as "the generals of the rocks" and boasting after the IDF attack on Fatah offices, "[the attack] cannot shake one eyelash of a Palestinian child holding a stone to defend holy Jerusalem." Arafat plays to their pride; he would have them believe they are "generals" and heroes when they are really cannon-fodder in the media campaign to discredit Israel. As a (London) Times reporter aptly described:
But can Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat control the children?...Since birth, Palestinian children have been pumped full of religious fundamentalism which promises paradise for those who die for the cause of free Palestine....Approving or not, the Palestinian authorities have done nothing to stop children playing with their lives. Let's face it, dead kids make great tally.
The most dangerous side of this inhuman phenomenon is that the children once brain washed into hating and killing others cannot be reintroduced as a peaceful and productive citizen of a civilized society. Once trained to terrorize they will always be a terrorist. Because of this very reason, many experts doubt the ability of a Palestinian state to be able to play any constructive role in the comity of nations. A nation that has been brought up on hatred and nourished on the hope of destroying the state of Israel one day can never learn to give up on its passion. And a people for whom the sole purpose of living has been to die one day as holy worriers can never become a constructive partner in any peace process.
In post September 11, world, such a mind cannot be allowed to have a base in the form of a state. The civilized world has a duty toward its citizens to stop helping, assisting and appeasing any group that uses children to kill innocent people. Any funding that is being provided to Palestinian Authority is doing nothing but working to bring another September 11, on us. This funding must be stopped, otherwise we should be prepared to see many more Madrids and Balis. It is no more just an Israeli problem. The fire has reached every civilized door now.
(The writer is editor-in-chief of Pakistan Today, a California-based weekly newspaper, president of Council for Democracy and Tolerance and adjunct fellow of Hudson Institute.)
