By Tom Brennan
The first generation of Israelis born since 1948 grew up with threats from the neighboring nations, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and their allies. These enemies were on the borders. Now a new generation has grown up learning to run to bomb shelters to escape rockets shot at them from the middle of villages and outside schools, hospitals and mosques. Israeli children are taught to preserve life as their Creator gave it. Whether the child next to them in the shelter is Jewish, Arab Christian or tourist, they hide until the all clear is sounded. Not so for the children of Hezbollah and Hamas. They are taught to hate and kill.
In the last decade or so there has been much discussion about selling to children. Adult fashions for little girls, junk food and toy sales delivered to vulnerable audiences encamped in front of televisions, and a moral ambivalence by marketers and others that has made children a target. Hamas, Hezbollah and other allied groups have conducted camps and drills for children to indoctrinate them into the violent cult of hate. So much for being children, so much for a any semblance of innocence. Hamas and Hezbollah and their compatriots have marketed hate and martyrdom to innocents who should be learning to read and write.
Photos have surfaced on the web of toddlers dressed as jihadists, green headbands around their foreheads, small sticks of dynamite in toddler-sized vests around them. No plans for college or careers for them it seems. The Israelites were warned by The Almighty to avoid any dealings with the Canaanites who sacrificed their babies to Moloch. There are instances where the Israelites did follow the local idolatry practices and were duly punished. It seems the Palestinians and other Hamas and Hezbollah dominated people are raising their children to die for a terrorist oligarchy that uses people for human shields and sends their children to camps to learn to kill Jews (and eventually any non-Muslim in jihad). Do they love their children?
The war waged by the IRA in Northern Ireland against the Ulster Government and the British forces went on for years. Both sides committed acts of terror and violence that finally wore out both populations. Yet the heritage of being raised to hate another side from birth, brought up a generation of rock and bottle throwing children who finally saw their parents concede to a workable partnership. The internal and emotional damage will take another generation to work itself out. The term generational sin can be applied to the violence and hatred passed on to the next until a generation decided to stop, change and end the cycle. When will the Palestinians get the message?
How moral is it to teach children to kill others, blow themselves up on buses, run over babies and commuters, launch rockets at people they can’t see, much less know? If Islam is claiming to be a religion of peace, where is it? While Israeli children are in school, learning to provide for themselves, their families and their country, Palestinian children are being fitted with explosive vests. Israeli children go to vacation camp, Palestinian children go to terrorist camp to learn to kill the children at the vacation camp.
As Christians we value children as a gift from G-d and as a grave responsibility. Israelis share this equally and the care, education and future of Israel’s next generation is at the top of everyone’s to-do list. Can we say that of much of the current Muslim population of Gaza and even those in Israel itself? Our first response should be to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (and all of Israel) and to find a way to touch the hearts of far too many Muslim parents who put politics as dictated by Hamas and Hezbollah ahead of their children’s lives and futures. Perhaps in the not too distant future, mature leadership in the Palestinian Authority will see the reality of what their violence and divisiveness has done to several generations of children .Perhaps like the leaders of Northern Ireland did, they will agree to find common ground and work for peace. If not for themselves and their ambitions but for the children.
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