Dead Palestinian children have names!

By Hussam Ayloush

GAZA STRIP - December 31, 2008 - As a father of five children, my heart breaks every time I hear or read about the brutal death of any child, Palestinian or Israeli, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or of any background. A child represents innocence, joy, and mercy.

When Israel imposes, for more than three years, a complete siege on the Gaza population of 1.5 million and turns it into a large ghetto or prison, it certainly harms children.

When Hamas responds to that siege by sending primitive homemade rockets into Israel, it surely endangers children.

When Israel carries out collective punishment on the Palestinians by dropping tons of huge missiles and bombs into densely populated residential areas, it most definitely kills children. So far, close to 30 children have died as a result of these bombs and hundreds more have been maimed and disabled.

Every time an Israeli child is harmed, the whole world mourns, and rightly so. The whole world is informed of that child’s name, his or her parents’ agony, and the tragic circumstances that caused this death.

However, when a Palestinian child is harmed, no one in the world seems to care. No one is told of his or her name. No one is informed about the pain of the parents, siblings, and grandparents who loved him or her. The zionist propaganda machine has succeeded in dehumanizing Palestinians. Palestinians are portrayed as terrorists, murderers, radicals, or sub-humans. That way, it becomes much easier not to care about such a people, no matter how many of them are turned into refugees, how many of their homes are demolished, how much of their land is confiscated, how many of them are imprisoned, and how many of them are killed or wounded.

The Palestinian people, the indigenous people of historic Palestine (today’s Israel and Palestine) are, like all people, a nation that wants freedom on its own land; and they have continuously shown the world their willingness to sacrifice everything they have to live with freedom and dignity.

Never forget that dead Palestinian children (as well as living ones) have names, and their parents love them, too.