A Midsummer Day's Nightmare

Summer is here, and the Guardian has turned its attention to the activities organised for the children of Gaza in the area’s various summer camps. In a collection of photographs the reader is shown summer fun with water, sea and sand which could be taking place anywhere in the world, but among those photographs we also see this one, accompanied by the benign description “A trainer helps Palestinian boys chant slogans during a summer camp run by Hamas at a school in Gaza City”.

However, the Guardian apparently sees no reason to inform its readers as to the nature of the slogans chanted, or the other kinds of activities in which children are encouraged to participate at the gender-separated Hamas-run summer camps, despite the ample evidence available.
No mention of the military training given to young boys, the mock kidnappings of Israeli soldiers, the promotion of Jihad and suicide bombing as an aspiration for immature and malleable minds. Not a whiff of the indoctrination and incitement which goes on every summer in recent years in camps named after dead or imprisoned Hamas terrorists , thereby raising the status of murderers of Israeli civilians to that of heroes and role models. No reminder of the fact that some camps are organized by terror groups of other affiliations and youngsters are encouraged to play with models of the types of missiles fired upon children of their own age across the border in Israel.


No reproach for the fact that children of elementary and even pre-school age are taught military marches with their faces covered by balaclavas whilst touting mock weapons and chanting Jihadist slogans.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g6UsYGCB2g]

And of course no detail of those slogans being chanted with the ‘help’ of the instructor or the camp songs the children are taught such as “kill Zionists wherever they are, in the name of God”.

“We don’t want to sleep.
HA-A-MAS!
We want revenge.
HA-A-MAS!
Raise it up.
HA-A-MAS!
Rifle fire.
HA-A-MAS!
If it will take a thousand martyrs.
HA-A-MAS!
Kill Zionists.
HA-A-MAS!
Wherever they are.
HA-A-MAS!
In the name of God.
HA-A-MAS!

In any normal, functional society such blatant indoctrination into a life of violence and hatred should be categorized as child abuse. One doubts that any of the Guardian staff would be happy to have their own children spend their summer holidays engaged in such activities, and yet this bland and non-committal photo-essay would suggest that the Guardian does not believe that the children of Gaza are entitled to any better and therefore sees no reason to either point out the shocking truth to its readers or voice criticism of these Hamas-organised activities. Indeed, the fact that the Guardian has chosen to present pictures from a Hamas-run camp among pictures from the UNWRA-run camps which have an entirely different agenda would suggest that the editor is incapable of making the necessary moral judgment required to differentiate between the different types of summer camp available to the children of Gaza.
Such is the racism of double standards and low expectations which denies the children of others the same things those in the West demand for their own offspring because of a fear of criticizing ‘culture’. The children of Gaza surely deserve much better, not only from their own government, but also from the bien pensants of the West who prop up the Hamas regime both financially and morally. Five thousand children are already enrolled in thirty Hamas-run summer camps in Gaza City alone this year and a total of 100,000 children are expected to participate in Hamas camps all over the Gaza Strip, and yet the West, including “the world’s leading liberal voice”, will continue to turn a blind eye to yet another midsummer nightmare of child abuse.
h/t Judy at Adloyada

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