COMMENT | Solidarity Week not doing justice to Palestinian cause

“The childhood of tens of thousands of Palestinian youngsters is being lived from one trauma to the next, from horror to horror. Their homes are demolished, their parents are humiliated in front of their eyes, soldiers storm into their homes brutally in the middle of the night, tanks open fire on their classrooms. And they don’t have a psychological service. Have you ever heard of a Palestinian child who is a ‘victim of anxiety’?”

- Norman G Finkelstein, author of ‘Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History’

COMMENT | As someone who has been on the receiving end of the muzzle of an automatic weapon pointed at him by a child soldier in Sri Lanka, the sight of school children walking around with toy guns proudly sanctioned by adults was, to put it mildly, distasteful.

Adults in conflict zones all over the world put guns in the hands of young children. They exploit the bodies and minds of young children with drugs, or worse, and give them the feeling of control, with a loaded weapon in their hands.

So, to see young children dressed in the symbols of occupation and resistance play-acting is the worst form of propaganda and demeans Palestinian children, living under occupation. In other words, their trauma is fodder for propaganda.

As a parent, if you want to buy your child a toy gun, that’s up to you. But this is different. What these adults did was put toy guns in the hands of children for a specific cause, teaching them that a violent solution is the only solution for Muslims in the Middle East or elsewhere.

Now, does anyone really think that Palestinian parents want guns in the hands of their children? Do you really think that Palestinian parents want their children to live in a world where they have to carry guns to kill their occupiers?

Missing from the outrage of the debacle of Solidarity Week...