Infants and Children –Victims of Palestinian Terror

Infants and Children –Victims of Palestinian Terror

The third millennium began with a horrific wave of terror attacks throughout the world: in Asia, the Middle East and the United States. The motives behind those carrying out these attacks are different, as are their goals, but all have selected terror as their principal weapon to achieve their political ends.

With total contempt for moral values, human rights and international law, these groups and organizations have chosen to use deliberate violence against innocent civilians.Terrorism’s immediate goal is to plant fear in the hearts of potential targets, to completely disrupt normal life and create public pressure on decision makers in order to force them to capitulate to the terrorists’ political demands.

From the terrorist’s perspective, Israel’s civilians serve a twofold purpose. First, they are the targets of the terror assaults. Secondly, the terrorist hopes that the country’s citizens will be so horrified by the attacks that they will pressure the government to give in to their extORTionist demands.

In the eyes of the terrorist, the more brutal, savage and deadly the attacks, The more effective they are likely to be.

The Palestinian terrorists are among the “pioneers” of modern terror. They helped “blaze” the terror trail with a series of high-profile airplane hijackings in the 1960s, and have proven themselves especially savage and cruel ever since.

From the outset, Israeli children have always been a major target for the Palestinian terrorist. A number of examples from the past illustrate this all too well:


*Armed Palestinian terrorists attacked a school bus in 1970, taking children from the Avivim Moshav to their nearby school, killing 12 children.

*In May 1974, Palestinian terrorists attacked a bus with students from Safed, who were on tour to Ma’alot, killing 22 children.

*More recently, in June 2001, a suicide terrorist blew himself up while standing among a crowd of teenagers waiting in line to enter a discotheque at the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv, killing 21.

*In December 2001, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at almost the same time on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall – crowded on that particular Saturday night with youths celebrating a friend’s birthday – killing 11.

*In May 2001, Palestinian terrorists brutally murdered two young hikers they happened to come across near the community of Tekoa. Using rocks, they smashed the boys’ faces beyond recognition.

*In March 2001, a Palestinian sniper shot and killed a ten-month-old Jewish baby girl in Hebron.

*In August 2001, Palestinian terrorists shot up a car full of Israeli teenagers in a drive-by shooting, killing a 17-year-old girl.

These acts of terror succeeded in achieving one of the terrorists’aims – sowing fear and planting terror among the population.

From time to time, the moral question of deliberately targeting civilians – especially children – in the context of “Palestinian resistance” is raised in Palestinian society. The terror chiefs, however, repeatedly deflect all such questions, claiming that no Israeli citizen – boy or girl, man or woman, civilian or soldier – can be considered innocent.

That so many Israeli children have been murdered in the last two years reflects – perhaps more than enything else – the depth of cruelty and lack of humanity implicit in Palestinian terror.

[link to www.education.gov.il]