Children’s crusade 2006
Posted by Richard on September 3, 2006
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has posted translated excerpts from an investigative article in the Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Yusuf entitled "Hizbullah’s Children’s Militias." Hizbullah (I’ll follow MEMRI’s spelling here; these transliterations are pretty arbitrary anyway) has long had its Mahdi Scouts youth organization. The kids are trained to fight at an early age and ideologically indoctrinated ("The first lesson that the children are taught by Hizbullah is ‘The Disappearance of Israel,’ …"). But according to Roz Al-Yusuf, some of them are now armed and prepared for action:
According to Roz Al-Yusuf, "Hizbullah has recruited over 2,000 innocent children aged 10-15 to form armed militias. Before the recent war with Israel, these children appeared only in the annual Jerusalem Day celebrations, and were referred to as the ‘December 14 Units,’ but today they are called istishhadiyun [‘martyrs’]…"
…"The children are selected by Hizbullah recruitment [officers] based on one criterion only: They must be willing to become martyrs."
…According to the article, Na’im Qasim, deputy to Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, said in an interview on Radio Canada: "A nation with child-martyrs will be victorious, no matter what difficulties lie in its path. Israel cannot conquer us or violate our territories, because we have martyr sons who will purge the land of the Zionist filth… This will be done through the blood of the martyrs, until we eventually achieve our goals."
This is the organization that Western reporters write flattering stories about describing its social welfare, community relations, and rebuilding efforts. Have you seen any stories about its effort to create 10-year-old martyrs?
These are the people that liberal commenters and pundits think we should dialog, negotiate, and find common ground with. What should we negotiate and arrive at common ground about — a minimum age for suicide bombers? A compromise on how many of the "Zionist filth" are purged?
The other day, I heard someone on the radio suggest a "modest proposal" for the liberals who insist that negotiation and compromise are always preferable to war: The Islamists insist that we must all submit to their interpretation of sharia law or die. What if we offer them a compromise, meet them halfway, and agree to some aspects of sharia law? For instance, we could offer to deny women all legal rights and adopt the death penalty for homosexuality and adultery. Would the liberals agree that such a compromise is preferable to continued fighting? If not, how much of a compromise would be?
Leave a Comment