One more:
"Not one Palestinian political faction, no matter how militant, claims that it encourages children to participate in the clashes. Every party's official position is that it's better for the children to stay home. But if the boys decide on their own to fight, the organizations all say, well, there's nothing we can do to stop them -- this is a popular uprising, after all, and the children, like the rest of us, feel strongly about recapturing our homeland. At the front, the boys themselves could not say precisely who or what had motivated them to fight. They were too young to be affiliated with a political party, though most knew their parents' party, which was overwhelmingly Hamas, the fundamentalist movement that denies Israel's right to exist. Nobody told them to come, the boys all affirmed. They saw images on television, they said, or joined a demonstration, or knew a friend who fought. There were no recruitment drives or strategy sessions or battle plans. They were just here to throw rocks. It was better than going to school." |
