Sending children to die on the front-line of battle. From Golda to Gaza

“We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children”- GOLDA MEIR, 1972

During my first year in Israel, 30 years ago, Golda Meir was the Prime Minister. I remember the affection that I had for her. After all, her American accent was thicker than mine. Yet there was another reason for that affection. Golda had a way of saying things about Israel’s predicament on the international scene that no one else seemed capable of conveying.

I cannot forget the only time that I ever met Golda in person.

Golda held a meeting with students at the WZO conference in 1972.

She told us that she was filled with hope that our generation would be one that would live in peace and reconciliation with our Arab neighbors. Golda then coined a phrase that would reverberate in Zionist circles for years to come.

Responding to a question about whether she had any regrets and second thoughts as a Zionist, Golda shed what seemed to be a genuine tear, hesitated for a moment, and then said, in a soft, choking voice, that…

“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children”

How appropriate Golda’s comment would have been this week, when pictures of a dying 12 year old Arab boy flashed on TV screens around the world.

That boy was the product of the new school system of the Palestine National Authority Ministry of Education.

When you read the fifth grade Arabic language primer that is being taught in PA schools, a ten year old Palestinian Arab pupil is treated to a special sixteen page section of the primer that details the command for every Palestinian Arab child to engage in a Jihad to wipe the Jews out of Palestine, out of all of Palestine. In case the child did not get the message from the words in the book, the final page of the primer shows the final Arab military assault on Palestine. And the primer explains that a child who dies in the fight to liberate Palestine will become a “Shahada”, a martyr, and enter the world to come.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported on a front page feature on August 3, 2000, Arafat had delegated more than 25,000 children to spend the summer in special military training camps where children from ages 8 to 16 were trained in the art of guerrilla warfare, with the aim of engaging thousands of Palestinian Arab youth in a Jihad to liberate Jerusalem. These children were taught how to make firebombs, lay ambushes, while practicing the killing of Israeli civilians and soldiers alike.

At their summer camp, these children were also taught the role that Palestinian Arab children had played in the glories of recent Palestinian history – the role that the RPG ids had played in fighting Israeli troops in Lebanon in the early 1980’s, when the PLO had made it a point to distribute small, lethal weapons for Palestinian Arab youngsters to fire at Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers at short range.

The technique was simple. A few seemingly innocent Arab children would stand in the way of Israeli troops, seeming to pose no threat.

And then they would fire deadly RPG missiles at point blank range.

Palestinian children also learned about the role that they played during the Intifada in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when the PLO relegated alestinian with the role of “strategic stone-throwers”.

As Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab described in his seminal piece in the Journal of Palestine Studies in February, 1988, Palestinian children in each age category were each given a different role to play in stone-throwing. Kuttab described the public relations effect that the PLO would gain from children casualties that would result from the riots.

So there you have it. If more Arab children die in riots, 250 news agencies from around the world will film the death of these Arab children.

And PLO crocodile tears will spill all over the media.

Golda’s admonition would have been more appropriate for the real anger that should be expressed when the PLO dispatches children to die in the line of fire:

“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children”

A note of interest: the UN has passed six unanimous resolutions that forbid the use of children as combatants in war. As a result, UNICEF mentions this in the INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD.

On October 2, 2000, after three days in which Israeli Arab leaders had dispatched their children to the front lines of riots, the Maariv newspaper reported that The Israel Association for the Welfare of the Child, well known for its leading role in the fight against child abuse in Israel, had issued a public appeal to the Israeli Arab community leadership in which it demanded that Israeli Arab citizens take their children out of the riots.