Carter is either a VERY slow learner or he's...

[bounce]

Here's the deal - Hamas says you're an adult at age 16. The rest of the world says 18! I can see the game they're playing.

So, outsydr, who ya gonna side with? Kids are kids until age 16, or are they kids until age 18?

I'll go with the internationally accepted age of 18.
myself



Occupied Territories: Stop Use of Children in Suicide Bombings
(New York, November 3, 2004) -- Palestinian armed groups should immediately end all use of children in military attacks, Human Rights Watch said today, following a Tel Aviv suicide bombing by a 16-year-old that killed three Israeli civilians Monday.

Any attack on civilians is prohibited by international law, but using children for suicide attacks is particularly egregious. Palestinian armed groups must clearly and publicly condemn all use of children under the age of 18 for military activities, and make sure these policies are carried out.

Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch


Status of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict


Most Palestinian armed groups claim to disavow the use of children in military activities, but at least 10 children have carried out suicide attacks in Israel and the Occupied Territories since October 2000. Monday’s attack was the second suicide bombing by a child linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A previous attack by a 17-year-old in Netanya in May 2002 was also linked to the group.

“Any attack on civilians is prohibited by international law, but using children for suicide attacks is particularly egregious,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Palestinian armed groups must clearly and publicly condemn all use of children under the age of 18 for military activities, and make sure these policies are carried out.”

Major Palestinian armed groups, including Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas, have publicly disavowed the use of children in military operations, but those stated policies have not always been implemented. Some leaders, including representatives of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, have said that they consider children of 16 to be adults. International law defines a child as any person under the age of eighteen.

Human Rights Watch said that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade has been implicated in at least four suicide bombings by children. These include bombings by 17-year-old Ayat al-Akhras in Jerusalem in March 2002; 17-year-old Issa Abedrabbu Ibrahim Badir in Rishon Lezion in May 2002; 16-year-old Sabih Abu al-Saoud in March 2003 and 17-year-old Islam Qteishat in Rosh Ha’ayin in August 2003.

Islamic Jihad has been linked to at least three suicide bombings by children, including attacks by 17-year-old Safwat Abdel Rahman in Tel-Aviv in January 2002, 17-year-old Hamza Aref Samudi near Mejiddo junction in June 2002; and 17-year-old Iyad al-Masri in January 2004. Hamas has also been implicated in attacks carried out by children. In August 2003, 17-year-old Khamis Gerwan carried out a suicide bombing near Ariel, an illegal West Bank settlement.

An international treaty now ratified by 86 countries prohibits both governments and non-state armed groups from using children under 18 in armed conflict. Israel has signed – but not ratified – the treaty, known as the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.

Human Rights Watch called on the government of Israel to ratify the protocol as soon as possible and called on both the Israeli government and Palestinian armed groups to recognize as minors all those under the age of 18. Israeli government policy in the Occupied Territories defines Palestinians under the age of 16 as minors while Israeli children in the same territories are considered minors until they reach the age of 18.

Human Rights Watch further called on Israel to take effective measures to protect the lives of all civilians, particularly children. During the October incursions of the Israeli army into Gaza one quarter of the more than 130 Palestinians killed were aged 18 years and under.


hrw.org/english/docs/2004/11/02/isrlpa9591.htm

[cameron]

Oh Geez Outsydr I'm even willing to concede they don't use children until they reach the age of majority. Does that make the indoctrination of children into a culture of hatred and blood lust any less disgusting? OK they wait until they become young adults to send them to go kill other young adults. 20 somethings that I still consider to be children. That you seem incapable of denouncing the indoctrination of children into what is obviously the glorification of hatred is in and of it's self morally disgusting and repugnant. If you think you are going to be able to sell this line of moral equivalence to the American public at large, you are out of your mind. No parent is going to see dressing their child up for Halloween as the same thing as strapping them into a mock suicide belt.



There is nothing wrong with condemning what is clearly reprehensible.

=========================================

Mother From Hell
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 8, 2006

The horrifying ingredients of the life of Mariam Farhat, or Umm Nidal (mother of Nidal), one of the newly elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, provide a terrifying glimpse into the future of the Palestinian Authority under the rule of the new Hamas government.

To be sure, no one more fully embodies the Hamas ethos -- and the ethos of infanticide that permeates contemporary Palestinian culture as a whole -- than Mariam Farhat, a mother who wills the death of her own children and the children of others. The New York Times recently identified her as “the mother of three Hamas supporters killed by Israelis.” The Times added that “she bade one son goodbye in a homemade videotape before he stormed an Israeli settlement, killing five people, then being shot dead. She said later, in a much-publicized quotation, that she wished she had 100 sons to sacrifice that way. Known as the ‘mother of martyrs,’ she was seen in a campaign video toting a gun.”

Umm Nidal’s oldest son Nidal was killed in 2003, and his brother Rawad in 2005 — both as they were involved in actions against Israelis. Muhammad Farhat was the first of her sons to die. In June 2002 he stormed the Atzmona settlement in Israel, firing indiscriminately, killing five teenagers and wounding twenty others before he himself was killed. When asked by an interviewer if her son had intended to target civilians, Umm Nidal responded: “Muhammad carried out his operation at a military academy. They were all soldiers.”

If Muhammad had targeted women and children, of course, that would have been just fine with his mother as well. The deaths not only of her own children, but of others, do not disturb her. “These are war necessities,” she explained. Killing civilians, she said,

“is a war necessity. They are all occupiers to begin with. Whoever comes from abroad and lives on the land of Palestine is considered an occupier, even if they are women or old people. They are all occupiers….Therefore, all Israelis are considered occupiers of our land. There is no difference between men and women...This is Islamic religious law. I don’t invent anything. I follow Islamic religious law in this. A Muslim is very careful not to kill an innocent person, because he knows he would be destined to eternal Hell….We rely on Islamic religious law when we say there is no prohibition on killing these people.”

Umm Nidal believes all this so deeply that she cried out “Allahu Akbar” when she learned of Muhammad’s murders and his own death; she “prepared boxes of halva and chocolates, and handed them out to his friends.” To those who would reproach her for being heartless, she responded:

“We cannot stop sacrificing just because we feel pain. What is the meaning of sacrifice? One sacrifices what is precious, not what is of little value. My children are the most precious thing in my life. That is why I sacrificed them for a greater cause — for Allah, who is more precious than them. My son is not more precious than his God, he is not more precious than the places holy to Islam, and he is not more precious than his homeland or his Islam. Not at all.”

In fact, Mariam Farhat encouraged her other sons to follow in Muhammad’s footsteps and become Islamic martyrs themselves by killing Israelis and getting killed in the process: “After the martyrdom [operation], my heart was peaceful about Muhammad. I encouraged all my sons to die a martyr’s death, and I wish this even for myself. After all this, I prepared myself to receive the body of my son, the pure shahid, in order to look upon him one last time and accept the well-wishers who [came] to us in large numbers and participated in our joy over Muhammad’s martyrdom.” Nidal and Rawad emulated Muhammad; it should not surprise anyone if her remaining three sons become murderers also. And if they do, Umm Nidal will praise Allah for their deaths, as she does for the deaths of her three “martyrs.”

It remains intriguing in the context of this death culture that many observers still cling to hope that Hamas, which put this woman forward as a candidate, will somehow change and will become a moderate force. After the elections, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said: “Palestinian people have apparently voted for change, but we believe their aspirations for peace and a peaceful life remain unchanged.” Mariam Farhat, however, was not only nominated, but was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, and was mobbed last week by thrilled supporters at a Hamas victory rally. One young woman exclaimed: “She is a mother to every house, every person.” Responding to those who would find hope in the fact the Umm Nidal is one of five women who were elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, Fatah’s Naima Sheikh Ali said of Hamas: “Yes, they respect women, but as they conceive that respect. It is from a religiously fundamental view. For the women’s movement, this will set us back several steps.”

The question must be asked: do Palestinians, despite having elected Hamas and Umm Nidal, actually reject the perspectives and positions represented by her and her party, as so many Western officials would so dearly love to believe? Umm Nidal herself doesn’t think so. “All the Palestinians,” she asserted, “share the same view” that she articulated about the legitimacy of targeting Israeli civilians. “They are not divided. The only ones who disagree and think otherwise are, of course, the foreigners, who have no sympathy for us or for our cause, and who know nothing about us. They are the ones who think that this man has come to kill innocent people. This is what they think. But we, as Muslims, think differently. We are familiar with the Koranic verse: ‘One who attacks you, attack him in like manner.’”

But don’t the Palestinians want peace? Yes, says Umm Nidal, but “the word ‘peace’ does not mean the kind of peace we are experiencing. This peace is, in fact, surrender and a shameful disgrace. Peace means the liberation of all of Palestine, from the [Jordan] to the [Mediterranean] Sea. When this is accomplished — if they want peace, we will be ready. They may live under the banner of the Islamic state. That is the future of Palestine that we are striving towards.” The future of Palestine is the future of Umm Nidal’s own family: young men driven to fanaticism and murder, egged on by their own mothers and the society at large. Nothing would make her happier than the deaths of her other three sons. Yet the world not only does not call this madness; it rushes to show Hamas that its largesse will not be cut off.

Striving toward the same peace envisioned by Umm Nidal is Hamas leader Khaled Mash’al, who said this at the Al-Murabit Mosque in Damascus last Friday: “Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, before they die, they will experience humiliation and degradation every day. America will be of no avail to them. Their generals will be of no avail to them. The last of their generals has been forgotten. Allah has made him disappear. He’s over. Gone is that Sharon behind whose back they would hide and find shelter, and with whom they would feel relatively secure. Today they have frail leaders, who don’t even know where our Lord placed them. Allah willing, we will make them lose their eyesight, we will make them lose their brains.”

If world officials think that an electorate that elected Umm Nidal and her party in free and secret balloting is not enthralled with blood, death, and genocidal intransigence, and that it will somehow stop celebrating the deaths of not only Jewish innocents, but of their own children as well, and that it will somehow join the community of free and rational nations, then they have already lost not only their eyesight; they have already lost their brains.

[bounce]

Jimmy Carter clearly doesn't give any more of a rat's-ass about Palestinian children than Hamas does (or their parents for that matter).

"You guys blowing yourselves and your children up? Sure, I'll be your enabler. Here's some more financing courtesy of the US taxpayer.

Now, go kill some innocent Israelis (and their children)!"

I'd say that pretty much covers Jimmy Carter's position on the matter.

He sure deserves that Nobel Peace Prize now doesn't he???

[bounce]

Cameron, you're exactly right.

Even IF they weren't teaching kids to blow themselves up, so what?

The entire concept of promoting suicide bombers (Homicide bombers is more accurate), is still reprehensible as all hell.

That is a fact. The simple fact that Jimmy Carter wants to fund people who do this shit and blame Israel for "Oppression" is idiotic.

[cameron]

bounce that cortoon is right on the mark.