I am almost hesitant to post this, because a common trope of dehumanising propaganda is to portray children as potential military threats and fanatical ideologues. One only needs to look at Israeli propaganda featuring RPG wielding Palestinian children to see this embodied. The implicit notion is that if even the innocent children are programmed to kill then the entire adult population must be rabid lunatics. Of course, this is the inverse of the truth. It is pretty easy to make children into fanatics, that is why militaries seek to recruit personnel as young as possible, and that is the significance of this article. All going well, however, the maturation process, the loss of innocence that accompanies our growth into adulthood, accompanies a growth of empathy and a loss of simplistic self-assurance. The blacks and whites become greys.
Bearing that in mind, though, this footage and the accompanying article are fascinating both in exposing the historical and current systemic extremism in Israel, and in giving a more universal perspective on aspects of miliatrism.
Dec 14, 2012
“I picture a dead Arab and that makes me happy” says young Israeli boy.
Another child tells the interviewer he predicts “he’s going to kill 85 people”
More in this video:
Israeli children share their thoughts on Arabs
Israel’s military indoctrination of children
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The modern roots of Zionism go back to its founding at the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, in 1897, its programme being the “establishing for the Jewish people of a publicly and legally assured home in Eretz Yisrael”. Five decades later, this was accomplished by dispossessing indigenous Palestinians, denying them the right to their land, creating a new Jewish identity, legitimising Jews as rightful owners, and using superior military force to support…
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On Genocide 