Give people nothing to lose, and they'll take what they can... and I'm sure it won't hurt if their religion promises Paradise for such a death.
That's not all they're promised.
The poor families of the martyrs are declared heroes and made rich.
A poor Palestinian family with ten or twelve children, for example, who sends its sons to the areas of conflict becomes a rich one if they lose one of their children. Few of the child martyrs are children of the middle class, of course. They are transported to the areas of conflict by adults or in taxis, along with the rocks they sling and gasoline for the molotov cocktails they throw. Many children go without their parents' permission. Many go with it.
Later I'm going to post an article from the NYT Mag of Dec 24 2000, in sections because it's long, but here are a couple of notable excerpts. (Karni Crossing is a site to which children and rocks are transported by adults). I should mention that the monthly stipends for a dead child are now not $150, but $250., according to a recent article in the NY Daily News, and it should be noted, to appreciate how much money that is to a poor family, that it is more than the monthly salary of members of the PA Security Forces. (Money is coming from both Iraq and Saudi Arabia):
"At Karni crossing, several of the boys casually mentioned that dying would not only transport them to paradise, it would also bring riches to their families. When a Palestinian is martyred in the war, no matter his age, the Palestinian National Authority issues a one-time payment of $2,000 to his family, followed by monthly payments of $150 that continue until the last child has left the house. The Red Crescent, an Islamic relief organization, contributes an additional $2,500. And the government of Iraq donates $10,000 to every martyr's family. Saddam Hussein has pledged $4.5 million to the Palestinian Authority -- enough to cover 450 martyrs -- and Gaza newspapers frequently run ads from martyrs' families thanking the Iraqi leader for his largess.
Ahmed's father told me that the Palestinian Authority's payment had already been delivered. The $2,000 came in an envelope, in United States currency. He was expecting the rest of the money in a matter of days. The first thing he planned to purchase, he said, was a set of Korans imprinted with Ahmed's name. He'd distribute them to his friends in Beach Camp. Next, he'd buy a carpet for the mosque. Finally, he said, with the remainder of the money, the family would buy a house. ''We are 12 people living in two rooms,'' he explained. He said he was looking for a little plot of land, where the family could grow olive trees. This is what Ahmed would have wanted, he mentioned. He had been unemployed for some time and said that there was no other way the family would ever be able to leave Beach Camp. ''Ahmed always asked why we couldn't move out of this camp and have a nice house,'' he said. ''Now we can.'' ...." |
