Dear HonestReporting Subscriber,
On August 1, The Los Angeles Times published side-by-side “day in the life” profiles of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy and a 12-year-old Israeli girl. The two youngsters live just an hour apart — she in Tel Aviv, he in Ramallah — and share much in common: “Both are privileged, middle-class children, raised by educated, worldly parents, and both have been marked by nearly three years of unrelenting conflict.”
The eloquent articles highlight the different attitudes expressed by the two children:
On hatred: Lely (the Israeli) says, “Of course not all Arabs are bad…but I hate the ones who are bad. The ones who attack us.” Sami (the Palestinian), on the other hand, “wasn’t raised to hate Jews — but he does.” Says Sami, “We used to think [Israelis] were just people, like us, but now I look at them as the enemy.” Sami’s mother concurs, admitting that she “has come to hate” her old Jewish friends.
On violence: While IDF actions against Palestinians make Lely “uneasy” and “angry,” Sami fully supports Palestinian terror — suicide bombers are “a fine idea.”
On the future: The final sentence of these profiles sums up each child’s vision for the future. Lely hopes for a safer, peaceful world: “I believe that sometime things will change here — I hope.” Sami, on the other hand, pledges more violence — regarding the supposed ending of the intifada, Sami “clicked his tongue scornfully” and said, “It’s just begun.”
The Times’ profiles provide a sincere window to the two communities. The contrast is striking: Despite local terror, the Israeli child recognizes the good in Palestinians and seeks peace; the Palestinian child expresses hate and pledges more violence.
The Times, however, chose to jointly headline the two profiles, “A Companion Called Hate Has Torn Their Worlds Apart.”
The Times’ headline implies a grand equivalence of hate — a premise supported neither by the Times’ own profiles, nor the current sociological reality.
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—- MORE ON CHILD VIOLENCE —-
The LA Times quotes a shocking statement by the mother of the Palestinian boy Sami: “Even 3-year-olds – they see a Jew and they pick up stones. They don’t even think.”
The ongoing Palestinian incitement of children to anti-Israeli hatred and violence lies at the heart of the current breakdown of peace efforts, and has even crossed the border into Israeli Arab communities. On July 31, Israeli police were forced to shut down an Israeli Arab summer camp whose entire “theme” was a call for genocide against Israeli Jews.
The Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick submitted an analysis of this deeply troubling phenomenon and Israel’s limitations in combating it.
Weblogger Charles Johnson, meanwhile, has assembled a disturbing slideshow of Palestinian encouragement of child violence and terror.
