The war on children

The year was 1982. The setting was the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. The victims were innocent children and helpless men and women. The year is 2014. The setting is Gaza. The victims are still innocent children and helpless men and women. Nothing has really changed in all these years. The world continues to turn a blind eye to the atrocities of armed military forces against unarmed citizens. The cries of Palestinian children were initially lost to the world celebrating the football victories of their favourite teams and later celebrating Eid.
I was a toddler when the Sabra and Shatile massacre happened. My father once wrote a poem on how his heart soars with happiness when he sees my happy, innocent face playing in the garden but a dark shadow aggrieves him when he remembers the murdered Palestinian children oblivious to the whole meaning of the word “war”. Their world of flowers, fairies, toys and butterflies has no recognition of bombs and missiles yet they are taken away with so much cruelty by these bombs and missiles and the toys adults play with.
Today, when I see my children, the same thoughts run across the mind. The poem written decades ago is still relevant. While the children of the rest of the world grow up with dreams in their eyes and smiles on their faces, the children of Palestine are growing up with fear in their eyes and blood on their faces. When western academics, politicians and media analysts try to dissect the reasons and repercussions of the terrorism in the Muslim world, they very conveniently forget what feeds this hatred and revulsion. A child who sees his entire family ruthlessly murdered in front of him cannot be expected to think rationally when he grows up. Expecting him to comprehend the whole situation of Hamas versus Israeal or the Zionists versus the Arabs is unrealistic and downright cruel. As he grows up, the physical scars might fade but the mental scars remain as fresh as ever; mostly his actions are dictated by his mental scars.
When young Israeli politician Ayelet Shaked calls Palestinian children little snakes who deserve to be killed along with their mothers, she should thank her stars she was not born a Palestinian. If she were, the opportunity to have a voice of her own would have been an unrealised dream. She might have been sitting in a school or hospital fearfully waiting to be bombed for no crime she committed.
This, compounded by terrifying tweets from Israeli young men and women calling for “death to Arabs and all Muslims” makes the whole situation more worrisome. While we all claim to strive for a tolerant world, it is situations like these that make us realise how raw and poisonous the emotions and actions built up on hate doctrines are. Israeli teenagers chanting lyrics like, “There is no school tomorrow; there are no children left there [in Gaza]”, sends chills down the spine. We are raising another generation of ruthless, mindless and clueless children.
The world has actively protested the use of child soldiers in Sudan and the indoctrination of young men and women in madrassas (seminaries) run by extremist groups in the Muslim world. The hypocrisy seeps through when the same voices are mute on the plight of Palestinian children. Those striving for world peace should know that by destroying an entire generation physically and mentally, their dream of a peaceful world is going to remain just that: a dream. There is some respite with Saeeda Warsi resigning or Ban Ki-moon condemning attacking sleeping children, but real action and strong condemnation are nowhere in sight.
According to the latest UN numbers, 80 percent of the Palestinians killed in the recent Israel strikes are civilians, with a majority being children. Some are calling it calculated genocide on the lines of what Israeli politician Ayelet Shaked suggested. What they fail to understand is that instead of eliminating terror by killing these two and three year old ‘terrorists’, they are giving birth to a whole new generation for whom the only way towards achieving one’s goals is through violence and bloodshed.
Ex-Israeli president Ehud Barak was highly criticised in 1998 during a television interview when he said that if he were a Palestinian he would probably have joined one of the terror organisations. This was stating the truth, simply and clearly. Ironically, this recent spate of Israeli violence has given an opportunity to the religious parties that had not used the Palestine card for years to incite hatred against the “infidels” (what the US and the west are for them). It should not come as a surprise if this mindless massacre leads to further radicalisation of Muslim youth all over the world.
Too much pain and bloodshed has desensitised the world. The blood of a few hundred, a few thousand, stops mattering after the initial shock. Many would think their duty is complete after a tweet or an emotional Facebook post but these lives, especially of these children, are more than that. A generation has grown up since Sabra and Shatila but nothing much has changed. With borders sealed, families fearful, papers worthless and homes unsafe, the children of Palestine are trapped not just in their land but also by their fate. If, by lucky chance, they are able to survive the carnage, rest assured the crippled survivors will ultimately cripple the world.

The writer is a communications specialist, former television producer and a peacenik. She can be reached at gulalaikhan@gmail.com