WISELY, Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni has moved swiftly to correct the worst excesses of the treatment of Palestinian children under the military justice system that has operated on the West Bank since 1967. These have been exposed in a joint investigation by The Australian’s Middle East correspondent John Lyons and the ABC’s Four Corners.
The practices alleged were inhumane. They were also counter-productive. Arresting children at midnight, taking them away from their parents, denying them legal representation during interrogations, locking them in solitary confinement and in metal cages during snowstorms has undoubtedly turned them into implacable enemies for life, in one of the world’s most volatile regions. It’s little wonder, as US President Barack Obama warned, that Palestinian children on the West Bank grow up regarding the Israeli Defence Forces as a “foreign” army.
To understand the problem in context, it needs to be acknowledged that the Israeli army faces constant and often dangerous provocation in the area, with children in the vanguard of stone-throwing and violence. Brutal as it was, such treatment of as many as 700 children a year was an excessive response to an ongoing, simmering conflict and not the product of state-sanctioned racism.
In mainstream Israel, the Middle East’s only functioning democracy, children born to parents of a Palestinian background have the same legal, educational, health and other rights as Jewish children. Israel’s 1.7 million Arab and Palestinian citizens, who comprise a fifth of the nation’s population, share the same rights as the Jewish majority. They vote and some hold parliamentary seats. Most live in peaceful prosperity and are far removed from the strife-torn, tense environment of the West Bank.
Israel’s enemies will undoubtedly seize upon the West Bank revelations to falsely depict the nation as being innately racist. It is not, and never was, but is often on the receiving end of racist propaganda. Israel cannot afford to compromise on security, especially on the West Bank. Ms Livni is a principled politician and an articulate advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In reforming an unacceptable military justice system for minors in a volatile region, she has helped Israel and the children.
IT appears that by being indoctrinated from kindergarten age to hate Jewish people, the Palestinian children are throwing rocks across the border (”Palestinian kids ‘used as spies’ by Israel”, 10/2). I don’t know if Jewish children reciprocate. However, during a visit to a kibbutz several years ago I noticed in their kindergarten grounds a solid concrete shelter bearing a painting of Mickey Mouse on the side. It was explained that the shelter was for the children to run to when rockets rained down.
Pat Cannard, Murrumba Downs, Qld
YOUNG Palestinians, arrested by the Israeli military for throwing stones, can’t be compared to your average Australian delinquent, who might progress to stealing cars. They are pawns in a greater game, and are likely to be martyrs in a future terrorist incident. Unfortunately, Israel lives in a brutal environment.
Ruth Rosenblum, Elsternwick, Vic
SO as we beat our breasts about the abuse of children under religious care, spare a thought for the Palestinian children who have suffered equally shocking abuse. Their continuing arrests and imprisonment (sometimes in outside cages in the winter snow), makes for chilling reading.
John Lyons has brought this situation to our attention and we cannot ignore it, as was done by so many in the face of the abuse of Australian children at the hands of the clergy.
Cathy Peters, Enmore, NSW
GS: HUH??!!!!