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Disturbing photos show militarization of Israeli children

Disturbing photos show militarization of Israeli children | The Electronic Intifada

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An Israeli boy wearing a military vest throws a mock grenade during a traditional military weapon display to mark the 66th anniversary of Israel’s “independence” at the occupied West Bank settlement of Efrat on 6 May 2014.

On 6 May, Israelis celebrated their “independence day,” which they mark according to the Jewish lunar calendar.

Traditionally Israeli Jews hold public celebrations and picnics, especially in “national parks”typically built over the ruins of ethnically cleansed and destroyed Palestinian villages.

Meanwhile, with broad support from the Israeli Jewish public, Palestinian public commemorations of the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of Palestine – can be punished by law.

Many of the Israeli festivities are celebrations of the so-called “Israel Defense Forces,” better known to Palestinians as the army that occupies them, arrests and kills their children with impunity and helps settlers to steal their land.

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An Israeli child holds a rocket launcher as another holds her doll during a traditional military weapon display to mark the 66th anniversary of Israel’s “independence” at the occupied West Bank settlement of Efrat on 6 May 2014.

Some of these disturbing images of Israeli children being put through military-style training displays at Efrat, an illegal Israeli colony in the occupied West Bank, have been circulating widely online and were published in Haaretz and other media.

A repeated theme of pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian propaganda is to circulate images ofPalestinian children taking part in such militarized displays in order to advance the belief that Palestinian culture is inherently violent and “teaches children hate” and that therefore Israeli violence is a justified defensive response.

But these pictures are remarkable because they reveal the extent to which Israeli culture has been militarized and how Israeli children are not immune to this – a key theme in Max Blumenthal’s book Goliath.

There is no doubt that both Israeli and Palestinian children have been subjected to this kind of brutalization by adults. It is horrifying whenever children are given guns and encouraged to imagine themselves as killers.

Such activities are arguably in violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that member countries “shall refrain from recruiting any person who has not attained the age of fifteen years into their armed forces.”

As I wrote on a previous occasion when such disturbing images of Israeli children appeared:

Children live with the consequences of Israel’s violent occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people, whether it is Israeli children indoctrinated to continue this oppression as adults, or Palestinian children brutalized and traumatized by the organized violence of occupation, colonialism and apartheid that pervades their lives.

This is never a reflection on the children, but on the adults who subject them to such ugliness.

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An Israeli boy wearing a military vest crawls on the sand during a traditional military weapon display to mark the 66th anniversary of Israel’s “independence” at the occupied West Bank settlement of Efrat on 6 May 2014.

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An Israeli man shows his son how to work a machine-gun during a traditional military weapon display to mark the 66th anniversary of Israel’s “independence” at the occupied West Bank settlement of Efrat on 6 May 2014.


Indoctrinating children
Rela Mazali is the founder of New Profile (newprofile.org), an Israeli organization that supports conscientious objection and advocates for individual refusers.


In this video with The Real NewsLia Tarachansky, she explains how Israeli culture normalizes military conscription so that people do not even regard militarization as a policy choice but rather as a natural feature of life. The report also includes an interview with refuser Alex Cohn who discusses how Israeli Jewish children are indoctrinated through popular media to look forward to their conscription into the army and to disparage skepticism and refusal.

Mazali also discusses sexual violence in the Israeli military and how the culture has managed to make sexual harassment and assault invisible to its victims.
Oh come on! This is an event to make the military more accessible to the public they defend. "militarising children" my a$$
 
I didn't get what you were trying to say besides the first sentence.

I am talking about growth of terrorism in other parts of the world.To recruit more youths in that organsations they used Hamas as an example.To create a feel in them that Muslims are under severe threat in world wide by pointing Israel -Palestine skirmishes.
 
I am talking about growth of terrorism in other parts of the world.To recruit more youths in that organsations they used Hamas as an example.To create a feel in them that Muslims are under severe threat in world wide by pointing Israel -Palestine skirmishes.

That is not true most organizations are rooted within their own regions and few have anything to do with Hamas, or this topic LOL.
 
Whatever the reason, the fact is that it happens.

With the exception of indians, no sane human being can justify, the Unlawful occupation, Atrocities, Barbarism, terrorism of israel on a daily basis.
 
With the exception of indians, no sane human being can justify, the Unlawful occupation, Atrocities, Barbarism, terrorism of israel on a daily basis.
I did not justify any such thing.

BTW, you seem to be justifying or at least rationalizing children being made suicide bombers.
 
I dont support the IDF on what its doing to the Palestinians, I know i'll probably get flamed for it, but I personally see nothing wrong in these pics, so kids are being shown how a weapons feels, BIG DEAL, the are just being allowed to touch the weapons and aiming (without a full magazine hopefully). In my opinion its the parents responsibility to teach their kids how to manage firearms as well as basic gun maneuvers and home defense and its best to start out young in these things.....

I personally dont even remember a gun being ''alien'' to me, hell on my 9th birthday I forced my dad to teach me to shoot (unassisted) a gun instead of getting a regular gift, and I didnt turn out to be some psychopathic mass murderer....

To all my Pakistani bros who are raging over this, plz firearms are not a big deal its not like the kids are going to massacre everyone in sight any time soon.....
 
OP, what is it you feel is inappropriate? Do you think showing a child how a military weapon is operated is morally reprehensible?
 
Jews are 5.5 million while muslims are 1.9 billion,muslims will defeat them .

If Jews have become holocaust in europe, Europe or US must give them a place to leave not displacement another nation.

PS: they are occupier and must be cleaned.
 
The double standard is beyond me. We clearly can tell which society is more militarized than the other. In Palestine, only 20,000 military members exist out of the millions of Palestinians. Yet we're told the Palestinians 'incite' violence and prepare future generations for violence.

When in reality they teach their children the history of their land and that they need to stand up for their rights in the future. While Israeli's are teaching their children on how to crackdown on Palestinians inside the occupied territories whom are protesting against the settlements. Israeli's are taught expansionism and religious justification for their occupation.

Blah blah blah, do you have your key? good, you know where to shove it.
 
Propoganda should be done in limits otherwise people will not believe in you even in genuine situations
 

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