Children and War - the use of Innocents as Political Fodder

Children and War - the use of Innocents as Political Fodder

Bruce R. Booker, Ph.D.

The latest military tactic used by Yassir Arafat to demonize the Israelis in the eyes of public opinion
is one that is not, in fact, new. It was often used against our own forces in Vietnam, when the enemy
would give a child of six or seven years a package of explosives or a grenade with the pin removed
to deliver to the servicemen standing on duty guarding his post. Often as not the serviceman, who
probably had children of his own back home that child’s age, would have to shoot the child
approaching him in order to stop the destruction of many of his fellow servicemen.

Who could imagine the anguish of a soldier who has no other option but to kill the child in order to
save his and his comrades lives? Yet when the picture of the wounded or dead child is splashed upon
the front pages of world opinion, public sympathy instead sees the defender as aggressor, an evil
person who would stoop so low as to kill innocent children. A reasonable person would ask, “What
kind of people are these who would kill innocent children in cold blood?” or “...And our tax dollars
helping these people kill children?” Never mind that the soldier was simply trying to protect his
people from being blown up. Never mind that it was indeed the enemy that had placed this weapon
in the hands of this child and directed them to hand it to the soldier. The soldier, and by extension
the people from whom he sprang, are instantly judged “guilty” of the greatest sin - the killing of the
innocents - and are deemed a barbaric people.

The use of children as delivery systems of weapons of destruction is foreign to most of us. After all,
we reason, how could a parent or people allow their own children to be on the front line of a war or
skirmish? No responsible parent would allow their kids to be involved in a war where people could
be killed or seriously wounded, would they? Surely, we think, those children were just there by
accident - innocent victims who just happened to be trapped between two opposing forces as the war
came to them.

That’s what Arafat would have us think. No better way to turn the world, particularly the United
States, away from its support of Israel than to portray Israeli police and soldiers killing innocent
children in the streets. What a propaganda victory! In the mele, while Palestinian men are throwing
Molotov cocktails and shooting AK-47s at Israeli soldiers and settlers, place a few kids on the front
lines with slingshots and stones knowing that some are going to be hit by rubber bullets at ranges
close enough to kill. Then when these kids are shot, act shocked and weep and mourn and swear at
the soldiers and nation who murdered them. Just think, sacrifice a few kids for the sake of evoking
public sympathy for your cause and wait for the inevitable hue and cry against the “child killers”.

In the end, Arafat wins - because the outcry against Israel will be so strong by the every-day citizen
who will rise up from their chairs after watching the evening news or reading their newspapers and
call their congressman or political leaders demanding an end to any support of Israel. And Israel, who
was just defending her territory and trying to restore order, will lose in the minds of world opinion

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Children and War - the use of Innocents as Political Fodder

any moral high ground it once had to a picture of a dead or seriously wounded Palestinian child who
was deliberately placed in that war by the parent or people who were supposed to protect it.