Israeli children’s safety does not seem to preoccupy the world. This may be understandable. Israel is a militarily powerful country and should manage to protect its own kids. Why should the world worry?
On the other hand, Palestinians, and especially children in the Gaza Strip—the manifest “underdogs”—evoke a tremendous amount of compassion and empathy. The world is in agony about their suffering. Their images haunt the collective consciousness like almost no other children around the world.
It would seem logical then that compassionate people who so worry about Gaza’s children would want the defeat of Hamas.
So why don’t they want to free them from a suicidal indoctrination that teaches them to sacrifice their lives and to become jihadist/suicide bombers from a very tender age? Why do they allow these children to be robbed of their innocence and be taught hatred as a desired menu for life? Why not fight for them to be able to have a normal childhood, to play with toy guns and learn life-building skills?
Why is the world not demanding that Hamas take the children and women with them in the more than 300 miles of tunnels to protect them from the Israeli missiles they have provoked? Hamas has risked the destruction of its territory and population by launching missiles on Israel, committing such acts of terror that demand reprisals and promising many more.
Why is Hamas not condemned and ostracized by Western media, academia and international bodies for committing war crimes by using their own children as human shields, as well as risking their lives when they send them out to spy or plant bombs on enemy tanks?
Or do they feel that Hamas owns its population’s children and thus has the right to use them as they wish—to risk and sacrifice their lives? Does such ownership allow them to promote the belief that the most honorable way to ensure one’s family’s financial viability and subsequent place in heaven is to kill as many Jews as possible? Is this the best future for a child?
Why have Gaza children and women not been allowed to escape the battle zones and be temporary refugees to save their lives, like other countries at war were able to do?
Egypt and other Arab and Gulf countries have understandably refused to allow entry of a population trained to destabilize their countries. But what about shelter for women and children in Africa, Europe or even just in huge boats on the Gaza coast?
There would be no humanitarian crisis, no civilians killed, and the war would have been over long ago. The houses booby-trapped with guns and explosives that were destroyed can eventually be rebuilt like normal safe homes.
Compassionate people, countries and international organizations that have shut their eyes to the incredible cruelty towards these children must dig deep into their hearts and figure out to which cause they have been willing to sacrifice the lives of Gaza kids.
Having an opportunity to blame the Jewish state cannot justify such blindness or callousness. A whole generation has been brainwashed and cultivated in the glory of death. It has been open knowledge from the beginning.
It is time to care about these kids truly—and not only during times of war. They need a real childhood. They need their innocence. They need their spiritual salvation and idealism to be more than hatred, killing and getting killed. Can people overcome their hatred of the Jews enough to save Gaza and its children?