The "child" killed by the IDF was an expert in building IEDs

Earlier this week I reported on Othman Atef Abu Kharj, a 17 year old who was killed during clashes near Jenin.

Most Palestinian media referred to him as a "child" ruthlessly killed by the IDF. Islamic Jihad, on the other hand, celebrated his ascension to Paradise as "a heroic mujahid knight" - but claimed that he was 18.

Now, Hamas-linked Felesteen writes a more detailed article about Abu Kharj, where we learn more of the truth.

Yes, his family confirms the teen was 17 - and they are proud that he was an expert on building IEDs.

[His brother] Mahmoud, 22, could hardly complete his talk about his younger brother, saying, "Othman was throwing his "elbow" IEDs one after the other towards the armored jeeps. 

The young men resort to using various tools to confront the repeated incursions of the occupation forces into the cities and governorates of the West Bank, in whose camps and villages the resistance action is escalating. Among these means are Molotov cocktails, stones, "elbows", igniting tires and closing streets with them.

But Othman had mastered making "elbows" and using them in several confrontations against the occupation soldiers, which they did not like, so they decided to assassinate him.

Wikipedia Arabic describes "elbow bombs":

It consists of a short, serrated tube and is closed at both ends with two metal pieces, one of which contains a hole through which the ignition fuse passes into the interior, which is ignited with sulfur. It is stuffed with gunpowder or black sulfur.

His family knew that he went out if his way to attack soldiers. "They all knew his courage, which always put him at the forefront of confrontations against soldiers heavily armed and fortified with armored vehicles," the article adds. 

This was a child soldier and an active militant. Even so, Defense for Children International ignores all the evidence and merely calls him a "Palestinian boy."

In English, he is an innocent child. In Arabic, he is a heroic Islamic Jihad mujahid - and also a child.. 

And the media doesn't want the truth to be published. 

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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The Washington Post humanizes terrorists - and doesn't do basic fact checks

Washington Post reporters are very proud of themselves for scoring an interview with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades:

Zoufi is the commander of the camp’s branch of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is listed as a terrorist group by Israel and the United States. He founded the armed militant cell just over a year ago as Israeli military raids spiked across the West Bank.

The Washington Post spent time with him and some of his 15 fighters, as well as with militants in two other Palestinian refugee camps — Jenin and Askar — over three days in July. The visits, agreed to on the condition that full names and specific locations be withheld, afforded a rare window into the lives and actions of fighters on one side of the worst violence to grip the West Bank in decades.

 ...Making contact with Zoufi and his fighters meant navigating a clandestine network of intermediaries inside the camps. After being handed off by a string of trusted escorts — walking along narrow lanes laced with sagging electric cables and papered with posters of slain fighters — the Post reporters were led to a room deep inside Balata Camp.

Several men there were eating mana’eesh, a flatbread with za’atar. Weapons rested in their laps or against the walls.

“Welcome. Yalla, join us,” said one man, known in the camp as Goblin.

It is exactly what we have seen countless times before - humanizing terrorists and trusting what they say implicitly while including the bare minimum of Israeli "claims."  

I found this paragraph interesting:

The fighters, who inspire both fear and fealty, enjoy cultlike status in the camp. There are no sports teams here. Male unemployment is nearing 90 percent. With few role models of any kind, boys collect stickers, posters and necklaces bearing images of slain militants.

The male unemployment rate in the West Bank altogether is 12.4% (2021). UNRWA says that for all camps, it is 17%.  This site says the Balata camp's unemployment rate is 25%. I cannot find any source that says it has an unemployment rate anywhere close to 90%.

The Washington Post does not provide a link to this statistic. It appears that someone they interviewed made it up and they parroted it.

And what, exactly, stops Balata's residents from finding jobs? It isn't Israel. Residents can move out of the camp and go wherever they want in the West Bank. They can get jobs in Israel the way tens of thousands of other Palestinians do. 

The only difference is that they have free housing, courtesy of the world paying UNRWA. 

Moreover, why is the camp still only a single square kilometer? Why doesn't the Palestinian Authority expand the boundaries so the people aren't so crowded? It isn't Lebanon, and there are open spaces outside the camp.

It is true that there are no sports teams in the overcrowded camp itself. But Balata, the town, does have a sports club - the Ahly Balata club - which includes an entire sports and youth program that also teaches job skills to teens. 

According to Google Maps, it is easy walking distance from the camp. 

The "90% unemployment" and the "no sports teams for kids" were factoids that were too good to check for the WaPo's reporting team. And for their editors. 

How many other things were they told that are simply terrorist propaganda? And why are they so willing to swallow it?

I asked that question in the comments on the article. We'll see if anything changes.

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No matter what they do, Palestinians are victims

The official spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said today that the "assassination" of "three young men"  by the IDF near the gate of Mount Gerizim in Nablus is a "war crime", and it is a continuation of the policy of "collective punishment" to which our Palestinian people are subjected.

The "victims" were terrorists who opened fire on the Israeli troops and were killed in response. 

The "young men" were 32, 33 and 43 years old.

While the Palestinian Authority in English says that they were innocent victims of Israeli aggression, Hamas says it is proud of "this group of the al-Qassam Brigades' mujahideen, who set out with all their faith and certainty to confront this criminal enemy."

There is no universe where soldiers killing those who fire at them first are war criminals - except in Palestinian fantasy land. 

Unfortunately, fantasies are often treated as reality when people want them to be true.

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Palestinian high school students must learn to hate Israel in order to graduate

During May and June, Palestinian high school students were studying hard to pass their matriculation exams. When families receive positive results, as they did last week, there are huge celebrations throughout the territories.

The study material for the matriculation exams comes from the Palestinian Authority. And according to the IMAPCT-SE NGO, they were filled with anti-Israel propaganda.

From i24News:

Study materials and questions on the matriculation exams administered by the Palestinian Authority incite to violence, glorify murderous terrorism and promote anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel, a report found. 

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) released a review of Palestinian matriculation exams for June 2023 in Arabic, Islamic Education, geography, and history. 

The report's findings offer an ominous insight into an education system where school books are filled with dubious claims, outright falsifications and incitement to violence, both in the name of Palestinian nationalism and Islamist jihadism. 

In one example included in the report, a geography exam includes a “map of Palestine” that ignores the existence of Israel and charts the entire territory as being Palestine.

Throughout the books, Jewish people's historic links to Jerusalem are dismissed as “baseless claims,” “fairy tales,” “myths,” “illusions,” and “distorted narratives.”

Further troubling examples include an Islamic Education exam describing violent jihad as “the apex of Islam.” The chapter of the textbook on which students are tested also teaches that jihad is “one of the gates to achieving martyrdom,” describing the martyrs as "knights," while a poem in an Arabic language exam describes a Palestinian returning to his homeland with a “weapon in [his] hand.”

There is no new report on the IMPACT-SE website, so it sounds like the exam materials are pretty much the same as they were in 2019 when they looked at them.

I just did a quick look at a Palestinian Authority website that publishes these educational materials, and came across this worksheet on Zionism for the current year.

It teaches Palestinian students that:

The basic rule of the Jewish state is settlement.

Settlement means replacing one people with another people.

The Zionist settlements are distinguished from other settlements because it is based on the destruction of Palestinian society.

The Zionist philosophy is based on racism and the negation of the other.

The relationship of the Jews with other peoples is based on hostility and conflict.

This is official, state-sanctioned antisemitism. 

Islamic Jihad published a new picture of one of the students who passed the exam, but unfortunately was not alive to enjoy it.

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One of the Islamic Jihad terrorists killed in the June drone attack, reported to be 17, was actually only 15!

Most of the coverage of the IDF drone strike on June 21 says that one of the victims, from Islamic Jihad, was 17-year old Ashraf Murad Saadi. Islamic Jihad's own press release for the attack said that their heroic martyr Saadi was 17, and most of the world's media accepted that as his real age.

But Saadi wasn't 17. He was 15. 

Electronic Intifada mentioned his real age. And so did an article in Al Ayyam a week after his death, where it was clear that his mother knew that Saadi was a member of a terror organization.

She said, "When Ashraf went out of the house in the evening hours, I felt a lump in my heart, and I watched him until he passed out of my sight, and I said to myself that I would not see him again."

But, of course, she is proud of him. She doesn't say a word about trying to seriously stop him or forbid him from getting mixed up with militants, the way a normal, caring parent would.

Both that article, and a newer obituary in the Al Quds Brigades website, say that his birthday was April 14, 2008. That means that Saadi turned 15 only two months before. 

If you ever had any doubt that Islamic Jihad recruits children barely out of puberty, this is proof positive.

But it turns darker than that.

Saadi was killed in a car along with two much older terrorists. They were 27 and 28.

Why would any older terrorists want to plan activities with a 15 year old? Why would they be hanging out together at nighttime?

Being a child soldier might not be the only child abuse that Ashraf Murad Saadi was subjected to.

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What the @NYTimes left out from their story on Palestinian kids wanting to be "martyrs"

Raja Abdulrahim continues in her tradition of using her platform as a New York Times reporter to shade the facts away from the reality.

She has a tragic story about how teenagers in the West Bank are writing out "wills" in the expectations of being killed by Israeli troops.

The farewell testaments reflect a prevailing sense among many young men that death is heroic, meaningful and inevitable during what is now the deadliest period for Palestinians in nearly two decades in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

With the intensifying violence, many young Palestinians feel added pressure that they themselves must become involved in the struggle against Israel and act.

Palestinian society has long lionized “martyrs” — anyone killed by Israeli forces — with many of their images displayed on walls and banners in Palestinian cities and, more recently, on social media platforms like Instagram.

Farewell messages are often published by the Palestinian news media and shared widely on social media, inspiring more young Palestinians to write their own.

Dr. Samah Jabr, the head of the mental health unit for the Palestinian Authority, said the writing of such wills was wrapped up with  generational traumas for Palestinians living in the occupied territories, dealing with checkpoints and near daily raids by Israeli troops. Many young people feel a duty to take on adult roles, including confronting Israeli troops.

“It’s not that they want to die, but it’s that they feel like there’s nothing else to give to Palestine except martyrdom,” [writer Jalal]  Abukhater said. 

Abdulrahim buried the lede. 

Palestinian society is suffused with turning all those killed by Israel into heroes. Just calling them "martyrs" is a powerful incentive. TV programs celebrate "martyrs," schools and camps and sports tournaments are named after "martyrs," the Palestinian Authority and Hamas pay families of "martyrs" - it is a death cult where being killed is the surest way of being honored. And this is a society that craves honor.

 Yet outside the half sentence on how Palestinian society lionizes "martyrs," Abdulrahim doesn't describe this fundamental part of Palestinian society. She tries to make this sick mindset relatable to the West, pretending that the kids have no choice in a place where they have no future. 

Think about it. There are about two million Palestinians under 20. The number who are killed is a tiny percentage of that number, while many more go on to live dignified and successful lives. But there are  few if any TV shows and music videos about them. 

When a child gets killed by Israel, he (or she) is instantly hailed as a hero by their media, social media and role models. That is the reason so many choose to go that route - not desperation, not because of "no choice." They are not being given any mainstream messages that getting killed while attacking Jews is stupid or counterproductive or evil. They do it because they want to, not because they are forced to, and their entire culture supports this goal, implicitly or explicitly.

That's the story the article is purposefully ignoring. Instead of blaming the Palestinian leaders - teachers, actors, musicians, poets, and other role models - for creating a death-centered culture, it pretends that somehow the Israelis have given them no choice but to want to get killed. 

“We can counsel the students, but we can’t prevent the army from raiding the camp,” [a school counselor]  said. “The occupation is the biggest driver among the youth who ask why they should stop when they are subjected to war and death.”

Is anyone - anyone at all - telling the kids to stay off the streets when there is an IDF raid? They aren't shooting at innocent people's houses. Only the ones who want to act macho and throw firebombs or shoot guns  are the ones getting killed. It isn't a difficult concept to stay away from the fighting, but one that is apparently too difficult for adults and other role models to tell the kids. 

The solution is obvious: to shame the people who commit suicide by IDF instead of honoring them. If the message in the Palestinian media is to teach kids to grow up and to try to build a  decent society, instead of turning terrorists into heroes, things would change in weeks. 

But no one wants to talk about solutions (unless it is the State of Israel committing collective suicide.) 

This is a systemic failure of Palestinian society - and that is something the New York Times will never, ever discuss. 

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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"Disturbing photos show the militarization of British children" (British hypocrisy watch)

In 2014, Electronic Intifada wrote one of its most popular posts, showing photos of Israeli children at an Independence Day celebration learning about weapons.

The title was, "Disturbing photos show militarization of Israeli children, " and it showed a series of photos from AFP taken in Efrat.

Israel haters like to trot these photos out for the strangest reasons. So, for example, when I tweeted a photo of one of the Jenin "children" holding quite real weapons, without any adult supervision, one apologist for British Labour antisemitism tweeted back:

When I pointed out the obvious differences between the two situations, (you know, one of them was actually using the weapons,)  he responded  "So the glorification of weaponry with extremely young children of  is fine with you"?

Ah, yes. That's what is upsetting him. Not children actually being combatants!

OK, let's go with that "glorification of weaponry" angle.

Every year Britain holds an "Armed Forces Day." Teaching children about the British army is one of its main goals.

 So we see photos like this, every year, in British media:

What is the difference between the smiling Israeli kids with weapons and the smiling British kids with weapons?

Because the Israeli boys are wearing kippot.

What is considered horrible militarization for Jews is not a problem when the children who are fascinated by military hardware live in any other country. Kids visit military museums all around the world, they scramble on tanks and fighter jet cockpits in every country, they climb on cannons in the squares of parks worldwide. No one blinks an eye. 

In fact, arguably it is far "worse" in Britain since they have an entire day for the armed forces - there is no IDF Day in Israel. 

It's just another double standard for Jews.  And it shows, in brilliant fashion, how hypocritical the British anti-Israel Left is, feigning outrage at Israelis doing what their fellow countrymen do on a much larger scale.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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