Thomas Wictor

Just about every day, somebody tells me that if I support Israel, that means I support the murder of children. They’re giving me a false choice: I can either continue supporting the murder of children, or I can oppose Israel and rejoin the human race.

Who taught these people how to argue? This is infantile.

I support Israel, and I accept that if she goes to war, some children will die. However, the responsibility for the dead children lies with the terrorists who repeatedly start wars they can’t win, who place all their weapons and projectile launchers in civilian areas, and who do everything in their power to cause the largest number of civilian casualties.

Not a single person who’s accused me of supporting the murder of children has ever had a bad word to say about Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Resistance Committees, or the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

People frequently tell me that over 500 Palestinian children were killed during Operation Protective Edge. That’s a lie. The list of names includes very young males who were terrorists.

Anas Yousef Qandeel was a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad al-Quds Brigade.

Here’s another terrorist.

Though only fifteen, Waseem Rida Salhiyeh was a member of the Abu Rish Brigade.

Yet another terrorist.

Mohanad Ashraf al-Qarra belonged to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad al-Quds Brigade.

The Palestinians also disguised adult terrorists as children. One was Ibrahim Jamal Kamal Nasser.

Although twenty-six and a member of the Abu Rish Brigade, he was listed as a thirteen-year-old civilian.

Not only does the list of children contain teenaged and adult terrorists, many of the dead were killed while fighting against the Israelis. For example, nine-year-old Obeida Fadhel Mohammad Abu Hweishel was killed while assisting his uncle in “jihad activity,” according to Hamas. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported his age as twenty-four, but the photo of the corpse clearly depicts a small child.

According to Harvard surgeon Sumner Slavin, children in Gaza regularly take part in combat.

If we look at the list of dead children provided by the ridiculously named Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, we see that 319 of the 504 are male; of the 319 boys, 187 are between the ages of nine and seventeen. That’s 37 percent of the total. There are only eighty-seven girls between the ages of nine and seventeen, or 17 percent of the total. The fact that twice as many boys as girls in his cohort were killed is a statistical impossibility given the demographics of Gaza, where in the same age group there are only 5.5 percent more males than females. One explanation is that many if not most of the boys were combatants.

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, by the way, is still flogging the accusation that the Israelis opened dams and flooded Gaza.

This despite the fact that the story is utterly false.

Therefore the only thing of which we can be absolutely sure is that 504 civilian Palestinian children were not killed by the IDF. All the Jew-haters who kept sending me photos of dead, mutilated children have a pool of about thirty from which to choose. And as a reminder, let’s recap the damage that the terrorists caused.

They set off over 1000 massive improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Each IED brought down multiple buildings, killing the residents.

About 875 terrorist rockets landed in Gaza. Since the warheads are full of steel ball bearings in various diameters, the damage these rockets do is amazing.

Imagine that a line of people had been standing in front of that wall.

The terrorists also fire mortars from concealed pits.

After the second shot in the video above, the mortar tube is knocked out of alignment, which means that the high-explosive rounds aren’t going anywhere near the intended target. Terrorists deliberately and accidentally lobbed about 1700 mortar rounds into residential areas in Gaza. High-explosive mortar rounds are incredibly lethal. Here’s an Israeli armored ambulance after it was hit by such a munition, fired by the same people who screech to the world press about their own ambulances being targeted when they’re full of terrorists and weapons.

What I don’t understand about Palestinian culture is that they put all their energy into achieving something, and then they complain bitterly about their own handiwork.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has revealed that Palestinian children are actively aiding terrorists in Gaza. In a striking example of the way in which the new PA curriculum has indoctrinated children, the children have assumed the exact combat support roles they have been taught in the new PA schoolbooks. This text book indoctrination compliments PA music videos and other forms of popular culture, that aim to convince children that their place is in the heart of battle zones.

This latest revelation of children’s active participation in combat coincides with the renewed broadcast (at least 10 times since Oct. 4) of a popular music video that explicitly demands that children participate in combat - even when it may lead to their death. (See below)

An article this week in the official PA daily, reported that children are aiding terrorists in the following combat support roles:

“In spite of family members’ warnings, groups of children are spreading around the [Gaza] camp, both to pass on information to the resistance and to bring them water.” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 11, 2004)

The children are being trained to do a lot more than serve as message runners and water carriers.

According to MEMRI, over 100,000 boys and girls from fifth grade to high school age attend “Beacons of Liberation” camps.

Young Palestinians in the Gaza Strip enrolled in a Hamas-run summer camp that is held annually.

According to MEMRI, the camps, which are held under the banner of “Beacons of Liberation,” educate the youth on the importance of “liberating all of Palestine.”

But they just use wooden rifles.

And wooden pistols.

So it’s not like they’re actually being trained to be terrorists.

Wait: Are those real rifles?

They are indeed. Fifth grade to the senior year in high school. That works out to be about age nine to seventeen. Remember that in that age group, twice as many Palestinian boys than girls were killed in Operation Protective Edge.

The Palestinians use children as combatants. But guess what?

I still support Israel. When she has to go to war, my support doesn’t waver. I know how the Palestinians choose to fight, and I accept the consequences, which include dead children. It’s not the fault of the Israelis that their enemies don’t value the lives of their own kids. Why do you Jew-haters think you can shame me into not supporting Israel? Look how Palestinian HOSPITAL WORKERS respond to dead Palestinian children.

Go complain to them.