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Kids and Parents once again By: In a BBC documentary film covering the recent crisis in Palestine, the issue of Palestinian kids participation in the Intifada activities was raised again. In an interview with Yom Tov Samia, the Israeli Army commander of Gaza strip he was asked if he thinks that Palestinian parents are different from other parents including Israeli ones. And if he truly think that parents are pushing their kids to the front lines to be killed in order to embarrass Israel. His answer was “ unfortunately yes they are different” The name of this commander if translated to English is “ good day”. He is the one who decides on the adequate Israeli military actions and reactions in the whole Gaza strip. He is the one who gives the orders for when and how to use the military arsenal that the Israeli army has. If Mr. good day thinks of Palestinians as a different kind of creatures, no wonder that dozens of them where killed and thousands injured through direct orders submitted to his soldiers. Dehumanizing the enemy is a well-known strategy in the history of local and national conflicts. The enemy should be presented as powerful, aggressive, inhuman, and dreadful. A major problem is encountered when the enemy consists of masses of civilians demanding an end to a long-standing inhuman occupation. The level of dehumanization have to be raised dramatically to provide a moral justification for brutality used against them and a reasonable excuse to continue employing lethal methods against their protests. When brutality and oppression reaches a level at which all the age groups of the oppressed society including kids, women, and elderly participate in the protests, the need for dehumanizing the whole society, raising doubts about its internal human relations such as parenthood, family caring, and human sensibility towards human loses is even greater. I wonder what was the dehumanizing process that the Nazis employed against their poor victims including the Jews. How did they manage to establish the internal moral basis to convince Germans to massively get involved in the dreadful holocaust? Out of this dehumanizing process I doubt that any of the Germans involved thought about Jews as being similar to others including Germans all thought they were different. Nazis were as powerful as Israel is now and Jews were as poor and helpless as Palestinians are now. I guess even in some places Jews tried to resist and in other places some resorted to arms to protect their lives and revenge against the enemy. And I am sure that part of this legitimate resistance was employed to dehumanize more the victims. I am aware of the difference in scale and the different historical context but the techniques of dehumanizing the enemy are the same. Such employment of dehumanization techniques against Jews was not only a way to incite Germans to be involved in the atrocities against Jews but as well to provide the basis for other nations to be able to live with and turn a blind eye towards the holocaust. Providing a false image of equality in power and wrong doings is one effective way of neutralizing others. The image of both are equally bad is one way to de-legitimize the right of people to fight against foreign occupations. This right that is guaranteed in all the documents issued by the United Nations and practiced almost by all the world nations at different historical stages. Yes it is important that Palestinians will choose the most effective and most peaceful means in their legitimate struggle for freedom and independence. But there should be no ambiguity about there right to use all methods including their right to defend their selves against occupation and aggression. I join my voice to anyone who demand from Palestinians to choose peaceful means in their struggle but I will stand against anyone who allow him self to de-legitimize and dehumanize Palestinians because the do not. | ||||||||||||||||
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