"I hope to be a Martyr, I hope when I get 14 or 15 to explode myself" (His mother agrees. *PIC*)

digitalfilmaker.net ^ | 05.15.02 | Maya Alleruzzo

[Registered]

A Martyr's Birthplace
A Photo Essay by 
Maya Alleruzzo

Om Mohammed helps her twelve-year-old son Abu Ali with a toy suicide bomber belt he fashioned on his own. "I hope to be a Martyr...I hope when I get 14 or 15 to explode myself." His mother is proud of her son: "God gave him to me to protect and defend our homeland." The family is seen in their Gaza City home, May 15, 2002. ( Maya Alleruzzo / The Washington Times )

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip May 15, 2002 -- Abu Ali, like many 12-year-olds living in Gaza, has dreams of eternity. But the Palestinian boy's hopes are rooted in a grim reality: "I hope to be a martyr," he said. "I hope when I get to 14 or 15 to explode myself."

His mother, Om Muhammed, is eager to help her son, one of six children, accomplish his goal. She helps him tug on a toy suicide bomber costume in her living room as she serves mint tea to a visitor. The get-up is dauntingly convincing, but is harmlessly made of electrical tape, plywood and spare wire.

Harmless for now, at least.

"I encourage him, and he should do this," said the woman, the mother of six. "God gave him to me to defend our land. Palestinian women must have more and more children till we liberate our land. This is a holy duty for all Palestinian people."

Little Ali, masked in a kaffiyeh and carrying a toy gun made of pipes, marched earlier today in a demostration marking Al Nakba or " the catastrophe," as Palestinians refer to the day Israel was founded in 1948.

Given Abu Ali's start in life, his future might seem inevitable. Walking through the streets of Gaza City, one can see young boys playing with toy Kalashnikovs and slingshots beneath the walls painted with graffiti depicting masked Hamas fighters, grenades, exploding buses.

Jobs in nearby Tel Aviv dried up for Palestinians from Gaza after the latest intifada began once peace talks broke down in 2000. The Israelis closed the border crossings in an attempt to stop the Palestinian suicide bombers from blowing up themselves and Israeli civilians on buses, in cafes, supermarkets and restaurants. But the bombers still make it through from other places. 

The killing and maiming of mostly innocent Israelis by these young Palestinians has only made life harder for the rest of the Palestinian people. Even for Gazans with local jobs, road closings often leave them sleeping at the Israeli checkpoints. Students from the south now sleep in tents at Al Aqsa University, lest they risk missing classes when the roads close. With no passports, Palestinians cannot travel. 

If jobs here are scarce, there is one man who is making enough to support his family.

Twenty-four-year-old Bahaa Yassin paints most of the portraits of martyrs seen in the Gaza Strip. Before the intifada, he did a variety of artwork to support himself and his wife. Family portraits, shop signs, and the occasional martyr. Now, about 70 percent of his business comes from these large, loving tributes to the young fighters.

Funeral marches are a citywide event. Young boys march -- usually five kilometers from the hospital to the graveyard -- alongside men shooting live rounds into the air.

Hisham Zaqout, whose nephew Youssef, 15, was killed when he tried to infiltrate an Israeli settlement, say the well-wishers, posters and artistic tributes have helped ease the family's pain. 

"In Islam, sacrifice is the highest honor, " he says. "Youssef did this for all of us to be free."

The irony of his words is that the continued bombings and Israeli responses to them only continues the cycle of violence and hopelessness that has led to a downward spiral in the lives of both the Israelis and Palestinians.

---

Maya Alleruzzo is a staff photojournalist at The Washington Times in Washington, D.C. She can be contacted at malleruzzo@WashingtonTimes.com

[Optimist]

will be wailing and moaning over this little boy's body

and the pres will be there to show their turmoil over the death of their beloved child.
Meanwhile, Hanan Ashwari, Palestinian spokesman (and ABC's Jennings special squeeze) trys to tell the west how disgusting we are to suggest that Palestinian parents are different from us and don't love their children enough to keep them safe. (BARF)

[Optimist]

pres=press (oops)

[Budge]

This is not sick. It is Evil. We have forgotten the roots of such atrocities...

You are correct, of course.

Can evil live in a well mind though?

[Publius6961]

Speaking for myself, there is a family I prefer not to share the planet with.
Or any other like it.

Prejudiced? You bet!

[lsee]

Taken alone, one photo might be satire, but taken together, in context, it appears these people have a deep-seated twist in their thinking....

[PLK]

His mother, Om Muhammed, is eager to help her son, one of six children, accomplish his goal.

The PC liberals dominating the mainstream press have de-sensitized the sheeple to how evil and malignant the behavior of this woman is. Some of them are even using terminology such as "freedom fighter" to describe this horror. And I fear that moral relativism, perpetuated by the PC thought police, has neutered the world's will to fight this.

[madrastex]

Now if he would just take his extended family with him....

[alaskanfan]

Taken from
The Clarion-Ledger
May 1, 2002

Arab leaders blinded by their hatred

I hate to admit it, but in one respect I agree with Arab apologist Charley Reese ("Sharon not fighting terrorists, he's trying to destroy Palestinian peoples," April 15): the situation of the Palestinians is deplorable.

The deplorable part is the way the assorted Arab dictators, strongmen and potentates have kept their Palestinian Arab cousins confined to squalid refugee camps for over 50 years to serve as proxy fodder for their continuing war against Israel.

Anytime within the past 50 years, the Arab leaders could have resettled Palestinians in their own underpopulated countries. But Arab leaders' often-stated concern for their Palestinian brothers cannot compete with their hatred for the Jewish people.

So instead of offering a new land, they manipulate this populace into sacrificing their children in a war against Israel.

The latest outrage in this tragedy is the Saudi Peace Plan. Essentially, it's the resurrected "two-state" formula: Israel withdraws to the pre-1967 borders, the Palestinians declare a sovereign state on the West Bank and Gaza, the Arab states recognize Israel, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Would you bet your life, and the lives of your family, on the Arabs' promises of peace this time? Why should we expect the Israelis to do this? The Arabs will only make peace with Israel when they come to love their own children more than they hate the Jews. Until then, they will continue to use their children, and the Palestinian children, as fodder for their hate.

Kurt Shinkle
Clinton, Mississippi

[Jhoffa_]

Unfortunately for the Palestinians, if this is their preferred method of attack eventually it's going to result in a genocidal effort to simply rid the world of exploding arabs.

I mean, they are the only ones doing it.. They won't stop.

Sooner or later someone is going to decide that if there were no Palestinians left to explode, then there would be no exploding Palestinians.

What's really ridiculous is that Yassir could have already had his precious Palestinian state several times over. But since he's an arrogant, narrow minded terrorist instead of a leader he will continue to allow his people to be destroyed striving toward some undefined goal that "the jews" keep snatching away.

(If there were no Jews to blame and yassir had to stand on his own merits as a leader, he wouldn't last six months)

[Mat_Helm]

Nothing new here as these people have been killing and sacraficing their children to false gods since Israel first conquered the land 4000 years ago. They should be wiped out just like the evil Nazi's were defeated.

[Pagey]

Does anyone else think that George W. Bush ever sees Pics and Articles like these? Or is he completely insulated from *&%$@ like this?If he does see them, how can he possibly expect to ever have a Palestinian State that allows ANY Israeli Security?Are these questions too easy or what the heck am I missing?Are these even the right questions to be asked?Well,I am asking.This is sick. "His Mother Agrees". What is that all about?That's Mom being brought up in a world full of HATE, that's what it is.(Courtesy of that "peaceful religion" <============sarcasm)I wish the President would not say that again.

[BJClinton]

What kind of mentality, what kind of illness...

It's called Islam.

[philetus]

No.

This happens all the time.

[exnavy]

Americans have to realize that these sick people will not stop until the last Jew and Christian is bleeding on the ground.

[Pagey]

I wish statements like yours would be spoken publicly by our elected officials.

[MinuteGal]

Something really weird about this pic. Nothing against the journalist or the Washington Times (they have to use the photos they get), but to me this is obviously a posed propaganda photo handed out by the Palis for journalists to write "photo essays" around.

The photo is too much a set piece with careful positioning of the models. The "living room" walls are remarkably spanky clean for the average Islam dump. With 6 young terrorist brats running around in there, the spotless walls are hard to believe.

Clothing on the kid looks brand new. Windows look out of place and don't look natural for an average Palestinian dwelling. Actually, they look like they are specially-reinforced security glass windows.

My bet is that the photo was snapped by Arafat's Propaganda Minister, Abdul Bin Goebbels, in a Pali gooberment office somewhere and not in Martyr Mommy's frontroom at all.

Now if there was a tail waving around down in the corner of this photo and some goat dung on the walls, then I'd believe this was indeed a "candid" shot.

Leni

[exnavy]

I know what you mean, it saddens me that all parties are to PC.

[Pagey]

Even if it is a " posed propaganda photo ", the fact remains that this mother is bearing children, to send them off to die,and they want this message out to the world in General.So they've effectively gotten their message out,just the way they wanted.They don't even deny they want us (and the Israelis)dead.Why can't an elected official be allowed to publicly change their mind on an issue such as this?

[MinuteGal]

Agreed. I was just having a little fun doing a Hercule Poirot on the photo!

Leni

[Pagey]

I hear you,right on.