Kids are in harm’s way

Bernard J. Shapiro, director, Freeman Center for Strategic Studies, Houston

Transcribed from the clipping

“The story, ‘Palestinian child deaths on the rise’ (Chronicle, May 19), raises some issues that need more discussion. As a parent, I am greatly disturbed by the untimely death of any child. This story, however, fails to explain the cause of the problem or point to its solution.

International covenants of human rights and the rights of children specifically prohibit the induction of children under 15 years of age into the armed forces of any nation. They also prohibit the use of children under 15 in political demonstrations and activities where they are likely to suffer harm.

In contradiction to these principles, Palestinians have frequently used not only children but also women as shields in political confrontations. In Lebanon, for instance, Palestine Liberation Organization training bases were frequently located near schools, hospitals or other civilian areas. They may wish that the Israelis would refrain from attacking those bases.

Unfortunately the primary purpose is to create negative public relations for Israel when civilian casualties inevitably occur. It is in fact the ease with which they are able to blacken Israel’s reputation with the assistance of the media that promotes this policy.

The sure-fire method of preventing Palestinian child deaths is for their parents to keep them out of violent demonstrations. Soccer, basketball, football and other sports should be organized to channel the energy of these kids. Attacking Israeli soldiers is neither an appropriate nor safe activity for children.

Israeli soldiers — many of them just 18 years old — will certainly defend their lives if attacked. Without getting into the complex issues involved, I can say with authority that Palestinian parents must take responsibility for their children’s safety.

The sad thing is that the media’s rush to blame Israel for every dead child plays into the callous calculations of the PLO. As long as Palestinians continue to win sympathy on the altar of dead Palestinian children, they will continue to place them in harm’s way.

If there would occur a moral outrage in the West against the use of children in this manner, the Palestinians would gain no advantage from sacrificing their sons and daughters. The killing would stop.”

Context added by this archive

A reader arguing with his own paper’s reporting, five years after a Memphis reader did the same thing from the opposite direction. This one answers a Chronicle story about rising Palestinian child deaths and locates the cause in Palestinian parents and in the media.

The human-shields construction is here in 1993, applied to children and women, and the closing sentence makes the deaths conditional on Western outrage.

Cite this item

"Kids are in harm’s way," Houston Chronicle, 1 June 1993. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1993-011. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1993-011