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This journey to School starts in Hebron/ Palestine

the children starting their day going to school to be faced with a checkpoint:

Wonderful liberal ramble of Liban on the topic “Why are Jews so Powerful?” fades here… “a good a proper education… why can't we do the same?.. Nothing would stop Muslims from exercising 100 times more power than the Jews”… Yeah, let`s go to school!

It`s a topic of no comment. Most of the world has no concern to this.

to point a gun against a kid! this kind of images just make me go insane!
how dangereous can a bunch of kids be, and how much harm they can do to an armed soldier?
i admire this children's courrage to defent on their simple right to get in the school, as for the grown ups arround r too busy to make a war ! it'a amazing how much power they have in their eyes, looking at pic2 i noticed the soldier that pointed the gun at them had fear written on his face! shame for this men who use a gun against them! this r the real terrorist!

Actually Alexandra, quite a lot if they've been brainwashed into strapping a bomb to themselves and walking it upto the check point!

But you're right this doesn't make much sense, but I don't get the point Bsorc is trying to make.

For the Matter of fact .. these younge girls have managed to manufacture bombs which just look like books.

You missed my point Intimacy, as sadly it is something that has happened in the past where young children have been recruited and sent to check points as unknowing suicide bombers.

But I don't know what the deal is here.

And would you care to elaborate through words rather than just posting images?

This Kid invented a bomb which is as small as a stone and as powerful as a rocket and it also could give him the courage to stand in front of a tank alone... by the way his name is Faris Odeh

Ok so you're obviously reverting to sarcasm as you don't have any answers - well done!

Intimacy

Lets just put things in perspective with regard to the child in front the tank picture

1/, where is his parents?

2/ why is a child stood in the road in front of a tank?

3/ why is a child throwing a stone at the tank?

4/ what lesson and who did he learn the lesson from, to make him want to throw a stone at the tank?

5/ why isnt he at school?

6/ what is the point of throwing a stone at a tank?

7/ is it courage? or was it stupidity?

8/ Shouldnt children be encourgaged to do things that children do ,like play games or sports

The list is endless Yshimy.

I would put it to you, this was not the act of a child, it was the act of someone or sombody or a group that encourged young children to act in such a way.

Do you really think that is the right thing to do, whislt chidren are fed with adult propoganda. What hope has anyone or any nation got to make this world a better and more peaceful place to live in, if we involve innocent children.

I thought the lesson is that occupation is bad. Is it that difficult? Or do you need London to be occupied and tanks roaming freely in its streets and meeting your kids on their way to school to really understand it?

MS wrote:I thought the lesson is that occupation is bad. Is it that difficult? Or do you need London to be occupied and tanks roaming freely in its streets and meeting your kids on their way to school to really understand it?

You may not be aware or be old enough to remember the situation in Northern Ireland? The vast majority of the inhabitants of this region are Protestant Christian and are firmly in favour of being a part of the United Kingdom, however there were, and still are, a small minority of Catholic Christians who were determined to force the region to be a wholly Catholic part of the rest of Ireland against their will.

This led to terrorism on a huge scale and to a British Military occupation of the area, which exists to this day. Alongside the civilian police force, attempts to restore order and to protect the ordinary peace loving majority of the population required check points across a very large number of public areas as one of the terrorists favourite weapons was the indiscriminate bombing of shopping centres and hotels. Many innocent people died over the years because of this.

The bombing campaign spread to the mainland of the UK and we were faced with random searches by the police, armed officers and troops in many public places such as the airports and roadblocks and checkpoints in and out of the City of London.

Many school children faced passing these roadblocks and checkpoints daily and became used to their inconvenience. Thankfully the situation there has now been vastly improved through diplomacy and sensible negotiation and people are free to travel without many of the restrictions that used to be the norm.

Yes, we understand it possibly better than most as that particular conflict has been going on for over 600 years!!!

This is an extremely simplified version of a very complex dispute but I quote it in an attempt to point out that the restrictions and checkpoints are there to protect the majority of peaceful citizens from the minority of certifiable madmen who indiscriminately bomb civilians. It is not nice to see and, if you have ever been involved, it is not nice to be affected by it and many of us wish it were not neccessary. What would you prefer? No metal detectors at the airport and for you or a family member to be on a plane that is hijacked or blown out of the sky?

It is a part of the modern world and sad, but it happens because of the fanatical few.

Knight

Of course I would like to see a metal detector in my own country that is governed and protected by its own people. However, I wouldn't want to see foreign tanks in my country's streets. I think you know that there is nothing in the whole world that justifies occupation (like the military occupation of Britain to my own country Egypt for 70 years ...have we every heard an apology for that?). Foreign tanks in the streets is not like metal detectors that protect us from criminals.

Did Egypt get an apology from the Hittites, the Romans, The French under Napoleon, The Germans or any of the other countries that at some point occupied it? The Romans occupied Egypt for several hundred years, not 70.

Tanks or armed troops in the streets whether they be an aggressive occupying force, an international peacekeeping force or an internal force are not desirable in this day and age, but it happens. We don't like it, but it happens.

To single out the images seen here as being exceptional is not really justified. I agree the situation should not be accpetable, however those children would be a lot more afraid if there was no security and the bombers were able to target them and their schools because they are a 'soft target' and the terrorists were able to create a media frenzy by harming them.

Your knee jerk emotion is justified and condoned, however the overall problem is on an exponentially larger scale. I think you need to just step back and look at the bigger picture?

Knight

Chocoholic wrote:Actually Alexandra, quite a lot if they've been brainwashed into strapping a bomb to themselves and walking it upto the check point!

But you're right this doesn't make much sense, but I don't get the point Bsorc is trying to make.

Choco... And you have been brainwashed to believe the crap the Zoinist media tell you is the truth... so please if you are going to justify the action of maggot Zoinist, than be prepared to justify the actions of suicide bombers...

It is mere arrogance not to apologize because the Roman's didn't.

The way you look at the conflict is skewed. You blame the boy and not the tank. This tank is not here to protect the boy. The tank is here to reinforce an illegal occupation. This illegal occupation is the source of the problem.

MS wrote:It is mere arrogance not to apologize because the Roman's didn't.

The way you look at the conflict is skewed. You blame the boy and not the tank. This tank is not here to protect the boy. The tank is here to reinforce an illegal occupation. This illegal occupation is the source of the problem.

There is no question of arrogance. I merely pointed out that Egypt, like France and Spain and just about every other country on the planet, has been occupied by someone else at some point in it's history. You can't blame the current generation for the actions of the previous.

I also do not have a skewed vision of this, or any other conflict. The question of an illegal occupation is beyond yours or my actions to control and is based solely upon where you stand in a political or nationalistic spectrum. There is a famous photograph of a student standing in defiance in front of a tank in Tianenmin Square...we would probably both agree that he was right and the PRC government controlled tank was wrong...but then we are looking at it from the outside of their political situation. To the people of China, it has a much more significant meaning.

Remove yourself from the emotion of the situation and then look at the wider political reasons why the boy and the tank were in the same proximity and you will realise the futility of the whole damned thing. These are power games played at international governmental levels by politicians from both sides who have their own agendas and ulterior motives. Both the tank driver and the boy are victims...just as you have become a victim of the propaganda machine.

Knight

Regarding people, not a single generation is to blame. Politicians, however, need to apologize for the bad things that happened in the past. At least condemn them.

I agree that the tank driver is probably a victim too.

But, I am not a victim of any propaganda machine. Different kinds of people have different interests.

MS wrote:Regarding people, not a single generation is to blame. Politicians, however, need to apologize for the bad things that happened in the past. At least condemn them.

Correct. We do. Often and very loudly in this forum. However, are they listening to you or I?



Knight

Dubai Knight wrote:However, are they listening to you or I?



Knight

Unfortunately, no.

Dubai Knight wrote:

MS wrote:Regarding people, not a single generation is to blame. Politicians, however, need to apologize for the bad things that happened in the past. At least condemn them.

Correct. We do. Often and very loudly in this forum. However, are they listening to you or I?



Knight

This is what frustrates me. The average citizen in any country wants to cooperate and solve international problems, but somehow our elected officials don't act on our wishes and feed us crap to persuade us to their vested interests. It is the wishes of big business and small interests groups that seem to win out because they have the money, power and influence.

kanelli wrote: because they have the money, power and influence.

Quite. That's what drives major change ultimately - read any history book. Arafat understood that in the 1970s. He had some money but not much power, so he created influence with plane hijackings etc and marketed the PLO cause that way. But now we see Palestinian children throwing rocks at tanks? I don't think that's going to do much except start a forum discussion.

alexandra wrote:how dangereous can a bunch of kids be, and how much harm they can do to an armed soldier?

A bunch of kids shot people dead in Columbine a few years ago.
In Brazil, kids are shooting people dead every day (forgot name of film about those slum areas).
In Africa, wars are fought with child soldiers.

arniegang wrote:Intimacy

Lets just put things in perspective with regard to the child in front the tank picture

1/, where is his parents?

2/ why is a child stood in the road in front of a tank?

3/ why is a child throwing a stone at the tank?

4/ what lesson and who did he learn the lesson from, to make him want to throw a stone at the tank?

5/ why isnt he at school?

6/ what is the point of throwing a stone at a tank?

7/ is it courage? or was it stupidity?

8/ Shouldnt children be encourgaged to do things that children do ,like play games or sports

The list is endless Yshimy.

I would put it to you, this was not the act of a child, it was the act of someone or sombody or a group that encourged young children to act in such a way.

Do you really think that is the right thing to do, whislt chidren are fed with adult propoganda. What hope has anyone or any nation got to make this world a better and more peaceful place to live in, if we involve innocent children.

interesting to hear ur views arnie...... well how wouldnt the adult politics affect the children when they are part of it. there are curfews, blockades etc . Now u can't keep track of ur children all the time...ur questions seem that u dont really know what's going on in palestine . go to Gaza and c for ur self it's like cattle market

I have seen these photos before.

It is sad and regrettable and a direct result of what was called my "liberal rantings on the power of the Jews"... Because of the fraternity of the people of Jewish religion and the resulting control (more detail in my other post), they have managed to do far worse than whats in these pictures but yet nobody hears much of them.

I may hate the ones responsible for what they are doing in Israel against my fellow Arab brothers but we are also to blame for not standing up after WWI to enforce what was promised to us, for being divided in foreign policy during the cold war, for not presenting a united from in peace negotiations with Israel instead of having eahc country go it alone. The list is endless.

Change much happen....

Lionheart wrote:

Chocoholic wrote:Actually Alexandra, quite a lot if they've been brainwashed into strapping a bomb to themselves and walking it upto the check point!

But you're right this doesn't make much sense, but I don't get the point Bsorc is trying to make.

Choco... And you have been brainwashed to believe the crap the Zoinist media tell you is the truth... so please if you are going to justify the action of maggot Zoinist, than be prepared to justify the actions of suicide bombers...

I am affraid you are missinformed Lionheart. Children were used as suicide bombers in the Vietnam war, as was mothers carrying babies. Chocs is quite correct in saying that children can be used a weapons. It does happen.

This boy was shot in the neck

Lets just put things in perspective with regard to the child in front the tank picture

1/, where is his parents?

2/ why is a child stood in the road in front of a tank?

3/ why is a child throwing a stone at the tank?

4/ what lesson and who did he learn the lesson from, to make him want to throw a stone at the tank?

5/ why isnt he at school?

6/ what is the point of throwing a stone at a tank?

7/ is it courage? or was it stupidity?

8/ Shouldnt children be encourgaged to do things that children do ,like play games or sports

The list is endless Yshimy.

I would put it to you, this was not the act of a child, it was the act of someone or sombody or a group that encourged young children to act in such a way.

Do you really think that is the right thing to do, whislt chidren are fed with adult propoganda. What hope has anyone or any nation got to make this world a better and more peaceful place to live in, if we involve innocent children.

Arnie.. this is The Story.. it will answer all the questions...


The poster boy for Palestinian defiance stood about 1.6 meters in his socks. He might have weighed 45 kilograms if he had eaten recently and well, which he rarely did. He was good at soccer and naughty at school, and before he died - shot in the neck by Israeli troops and left to bleed to death on the battlefield - he told his friends he was intent on becoming a martyr for the Palestinian cause. Faris Odeh got his wish, and then some. Killed last month, a few weeks shy of his 15th birthday, Faris has been immortalized posthumously by a remarkable photograph. It captured him - short, scrawny and wearing a baggy sweater - rearing back to sling a stone at an Israeli tank perhaps 14 meters (45 feet) away.Now Faris is a Palestinian legend, his valor celebrated in graffiti and wall art. Political parties pay him homage. Television extols his example. His photograph adorns calendars and posters has been painted, larger than life and in bright colors, on the walls of refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and on the sides of West Bank office buildings.

But at home in Gaza City, where Faris lived with his parents and eight brothers and sisters, the hullabaloo over his death strikes a sour chord. His mother, for one, is not sure she buys it."When I see his picture my heart is torn to pieces," said Anam Odeh, 40. "I guess I feel proud for him being called a hero, standing in front of a tank and all that. But when I see his classmates come around after school, all I can do is cry. "And this is what I was just telling my neighbors" - she starts to weep softly, brushing the tears away as the words come tumbling out - "that I'm so afraid that Faris's death will just go back to normal. And the only thing that has happened is that I'll have lost my son."

He was almost never heard talking politics. What he did like was taking risks. Once he leapt from the roof of his house to his cousins' next door, a span of about two and a half meters over a four-story drop. And in the Palestinian uprising that started Sept. 29, he found the ultimate risk.Day after day he would skip school after morning classes to go looking for trouble. If there was no fighting with Israeli troops at Netzarim, an isolated Jewish outpost in Gaza, he would go looking at Karni, a crossing point into Gaza controlled by the Israeli army.

Faris's absences did not go unnoticed. His headmaster would send notes to his parents. His father would beat him. His mother would go looking for him from clash point to clash point, ducking bullets as she searched each group of boys. When she found him, he was usually at his forward-most position, just meters away from the Israeli troops and tanks.To his mother, he seemed to have a death wish. "It wasn't the fame he loved," she said. "In fact, he was afraid that if he was filmed on TV his father would see him, so he'd run away from the cameras. One day, after I'd gone and dragged him from the clashes every day for a week, I told him: 'Okay, you want to throw stones? Fine. But at least hide behind something! Why do you have to be at the very front, even farther up than the older kids?' And he said ' I'm not afraid.'"His father, Fayek Odeh, tried everything. He did not just beat Faris, said his mother. "He beat him black and blue for throwing stones."

At one point, his father locked Faris in his room; he escaped through a window and shinnied down a drain pipe. The next time his father heard that Faris had been at a clash point, he tied the boy's hands and feet together and left him on the roof after dinner. By midnight, his mother, worried sick about the boy, sneaked up to the roof and freed him. Angry notes from the school principal made the things worse. Faris had always been in trouble at school; now he was skipping it completely. There would be scenes at home- his father would be accusing Faris of throwing stones; Faris denying it; his father finding a slingshot under his son's shirt, and the beatings starting all over again. On Nov. 1, after a month of clashes, Faris's cousin Shadi, a young ,man who had recently joined the Palestinian police, was killed in a confrontation in Gaza. "When that happened, Faris said, ' I swear I'll avenge his death," Anam Odeh said. "He went to Shadi's funeral wreath and placed a snapshot of himself in it. He said that the wreath would be for him, too."

Late at night, after the beatings and the screaming and the punishments, Faris's parents would talk quietly in their room. "I'm afraid for Faris," his father would say, Anam Odeh remembered. " I'm afraid something bad will happen."Other boys, Faris's friends from school, would stop by the house to warn his mother that he was at Karni again, throwing stones. She grew more worried; Faris ate little and spent the day scrambling through gunfire; he had become as thin as a stick. "I must have gone out looking for him 50 times," she said."One day I went out three times. Sometimes I'd sit down to lunch, and before I could put the first bite in my mouth, some kids would come by and tell me Faris was at Karni again, throwing stones. And I'd drop my fork and rush out to find him."

Anam Odeh became such a familiar sight at Karni that the other boys would tease he son: "Hey, Faris, where's that SWAT team that's always after you?" Faris was killed on Nov.9 at Karni, about 10 days after the famous photo was taken. His friends said that he was shot while crouching down to pick up a stone. He was so close to an Israeli tank,, they said, that they could not drag his still body to an ambulance for more than a hour. The hospital pronounced him dead on arrival. It was not long before people began to stop Anam Odeh on the street, recognizing her from television. "Aren't you the martyr Faris's mother?" they would say. Like all families of Palestinians killed by Israeli troops since September, the Odehs received a $10,000 check from President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. For Palestinians, the Odeh's son is a hero, a lesson, a model. But not to his mother. "Faris was a boy who loved me so much," she said, weeping again. "His blood is worth so much more."

This is a very sad comment on society as a whole. The fact that a boy of this age was not able to be controlled by his parents or his school and insisted on playing truant to be a member of a mob rather than achieve a life and an education. They say the real soldiers are those who fight with the mind and diplomacy rather than the gun and the bullet.

Perhaps if he had not chosen to feed his adrenaline rush and concentraterd on his studies, he would heve been the next peacekeeper or political leader of his people? Instead he chose to provoke an already provoked man with a gun.

I refuse to believe that, at his age, he really knew what he was doing and to him it was all still just a big game. I am appalled also at the confessions of the parents to state that they beat the boy 'black and blue'. What purpose did this serve? He was terrified of going home and to him it probably seemed that dodging bullets and throwing rocks was far more preferable to being at home being abused.

I feel sorry for the parents, the family, even the soldiers faced with the dilemma of a child intent on causing as much damage and harm to them as possible...but most of all I feel sorry for the boy who, contrary to popular myth may well be forgotton by the masses sooner than you think. Within a few years he will only be remembered by his families and a small news archive...



Knight

Knight, you still don't want to mention the original problem: illegal occupation. You still blaim the boy. The occupation is illegal. Its resistance by men, women and children is legitimate. It is unfair to ask the boy to seek a natural life under occupation. The French, British and other Europeans resisted German occupation. The million people who died resisting the French occupation in Algeria died in honor, and it wouldn't have been fair to ask them to seek a normal life, and don't care about the French.