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They dream of peace ... and blood
The Sydney Morning Herald ^ | 19 february 2002 | Ross Dunn

Posted on 02/19/2002 12:55:56 PM PST by knighthawk

In Bethlehem, Arab children look forward to being doctors, teachers or suicide bombers, reports Ross Dunn.

Smartly dressed in their school uniforms, Manar Alameer and her friend Khadija Bdeer pass through narrow alleyways, skipping over puddles formed from the showers that drenched the clusters of cement buildings the night before.

The walls of their high school in this densely populated Palestinian refugee camp are marked with bullet holes, from fierce exchanges of gunfire between Israeli troops and Palestinian snipers which have raged sporadically for more than a year.

Manar and Khadija, both aged 12, smile brightly and giggle as a group of boys tease them on their way home. Few could imagine that behind those apparently proud, self-confident faces there is a complex, troubled inner world. Witnessing clashes from their windows and losing friends have impacted on their subconscious minds. When night comes, these girls wake in a cold sweat, haunted by nightmares and sometimes apocalyptic visions of a final battle between Arabs and Jews.

They are faced with a difficult dichotomy in attempting to cope with the conditions around them. On one hand they dream of becoming doctors or teachers "so they can help others", while at the same time they harbour darker desires, sometimes wishing to be among the next generation of suicide bombers.

Khadija says she has dreams about Israeli soldiers bursting into her home and killing her. "I want very much to be a martyr," she says defiantly. "I keep telling my friends and my family all the time, 'I want to be martyr.'"

Manar says this is a frequent topic of conversation at school after clashes. "Among friends at school we talk about the need for peace, but when the Israeli actions started we wanted to become suicide bombers because not even our schools are safe," she says.

To seek martyrdom is not only an ambition that more Palestinian children are expressing freely, it is also what the experts fear will happen. These two girls have taken part in a pilot study by a Palestinian clinical psychologist, Dr Shafiq Masalha, who is analysing their dreams and how they express themselves through their drawings. He surveyed 150 Palestinian children aged from 10 to 12 in the West Bank. The results indicate that nearly 80 per cent dreamt about the conflict, about 15 per cent wanted to become martyrs and, surprisingly, a quarter of them were girls.

This finding might have greater relevance after a Palestinian woman carrying a bomb died in an explosion in the heart of Jerusalem last month. Some claim that she died after the explosives detonated prematurely; others say this was the first case of a Palestinian woman suicide bomber.

The truth about this incident may never be known but Masalha's study shows that there are an increasing number of Palestinian girls who express a wish to die in this fashion.

"This material is very troubling, I believe," he says. "It is troubling for the Palestinians themselves, for the kids and for the Israelis, that we are raising children who are only 10 years old and thinking that they want to kill themselves and sometimes to kill others."

He is driven to find out more in the dream world of Palestinian children where the signs of danger and despair are becoming deeply rooted.

Manar tosses in the night, envisaging herself standing outside the Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) in Jerusalem's walled Old City, where she has joined other Muslims preparing to confront the Jewish people. The area is the third holiest site in the Islamic world after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

In this compound stands the Al-Aqsa mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock, the glittering jewel in the landscape of the Holy City, built over the spot where the prophet Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven. But it is also known as the Temple Mount, the place where the Jewish holy temples stood in biblical times, making it the most sacred place in Judaism.

The area is featured in prophecies and predictions about the end of the world and these associations are symbolised in Manar's dreams. "There was a big river," she says, recounting her visions. "I was standing on one side with the Muslims and on the other bank were the Jews. Then the Muslims threw all the things that belonged to the Jews into the river, so that the Jews would leave the Al-Aqsa. But suddenly the river filled with the blood of the Muslim people and I woke in fright and told my mother."

In another dream, she sees one of the Palestinian youths from her refugee camp who was killed in the recent fighting. She follows him until suddenly he vanishes. Bewildered, she marches towards his tomb, only to find him standing in front of it.

Khadija also shares a pattern of dreams filled with potent symbolism, even a faint hope amid the winds of war that peace will one day prevail. "I saw a horse walking along and above him was a white dove," she says. "The [Israeli] soldiers shot the dove, which fell on the horse's back.

"The horse does not sense that the dove is there, which then slips from his back to the ground. But there is a flock of doves flying overhead who saw the plight of their fellow bird and sweep down from the sky. They heal her wounds and teach her to fly again."

But even such rare expressions of hope by Palestinian children in the West Bank are less likely to be found in the Gaza Strip, where their counterparts are also disturbed in their sleep.

The prominent Palestinian psychiatrist Dr Eyad Sarraj, who is concerned with the mental health of children in the Gaza Strip, says the disorders are the result of a situation of utter despair. "There are a lot of nightmares, a lot of night terror, a lot of insomnia and bed-wetting, which is a sign of anxiety and stress," he says.

"But to have 15- and 18-year-olds bed-wetting [is a new phenomenon]. My idols were movie stars and football players. Today the idols are martyrs."

He asks others to imagine the predicament of Palestinian children who, he says, are unable to rely on their elders for support, because they, too, are terrified and traumatised by the violence.

"The content of their lives is very traumatic," he says. "And they receive trauma through the eyes of their parents and the behaviour of their parents." He adds that when the area is under attack, there is no escape from the Gaza Strip, which is bordered by the sea on one side and Israel on the other.

"Imagine yourself in Gaza and suddenly there is an Apache helicopter in the skies and everybody is vulnerable and so exposed and at the same time trapped. You are in prison; you can't leave Gaza because Gaza is closed off. You have the sea and you have all the borders closed off," he says.

"People are suddenly in a panic and don't know where to hide. Is it better to be on the roof or underneath, because we don't have bomb shelters? Is it better to be in the street or under a tree, and, of course, adults panic? They [the children] watch and they see the helplessness and desperation of their parents and they ask their parents in return, 'Why don't you have a gun, father?'"

This sense of helplessness is something that Palestinian social worker Iman Saleh, tries to encourage the children to overcome. She lives in Bethlehem and visits the Aida refugee camp, where she even teaches them some practical techniques, such as crawling along the classroom floor when the school is under fire and to sing out loud to distract their minds from the horrors of war. "Fear. Most of the feeling is fear - fear of everything," she says.

And more often this is being transformed into violence that is being directed inwardly in Palestinian society, as well as by the Israeli army. Mothers often complain to her that their children are not only bed-wetting but fighting more often among themselves in the school playgrounds and in their homes, and committing acts of vandalism.

"Before the Intifada [the Palestinian uprising against Israel that began in September 2000], they played normal games like all kids," she says. "But after the Intifada, the only thing they play is Palestinians and soldiers." The Israeli Government claims that the children are prone to violence because of the political propaganda they are fed in Palestinian schools.

How much of their thinking is influenced by the education system or their culture remains unclear. But there is no doubt that the drawings of Manar and Khadija have been politically inspired and are not simply the work of a child's imagination.

Holding up one of example of her work, Manar says: "This is 1953 when my family became refugees and the key means that we want to return home. The tree stands strongly in the land and all the Palestinians will stand like this tree. This is the map of Palestine and she is surrounded and the eye of Palestine is weeping." Khadija, too, speaks with the strong will of a family torn apart by war and longing to return to their former homes, which have become part of Israel since its establishment in 1948.

"With God's will they will go back to their homes in Israel," she says, presenting one of her drawings. She points out the basic elements of the composition. "This is an Arab defender and these two are Israelis," she says. "He [the Arab] kills one of the Israelis and this drawing shows that one day, hopefully, we will liberate our land."

Masalha says that the trauma of daily life for many Palestinian children, particularly those in refugee camps, is being reflected in their dreams, as well as their drawings. He says he is deeply disturbed that not one child in his survey made a single positive statement about Israelis. "So these kids, who are living in these terrifying circumstances, terrifying daily events - so what can we expect from them?" he asks. "What feelings, what thoughts would they expect thinking that life is not worth living and maybe death is a way out from these terrible circumstances?

"If this generation continues to grow up in the way that they represent themselves in their dreams, I believe that our future is very bleak."


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Comment #41 Removed by Moderator

To: Yehuda
I certainly agree with you on not giving those people a state of their own. When they do get it they will do terrorist attacks on Israel. Israel will have to respond and the Arab world will see it as a decleration of wasr.

Only the Saudis use our F-15's, not F-14's.

42 posted on 02/21/2002 2:38:18 AM PST by knighthawk
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To: knighthawk
FYI- Israel uses American-made F-15s and -16s. They also used F-4 Phantoms, but I think they've been phased out. Other U.S. made terrorist headaches in their inventory include the Cobra and Apache attack helicopters.

Israeli pilots are also among the most respected in the world.

43 posted on 02/21/2002 3:24:36 AM PST by Long Cut
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To: Pissed Off Janitor
If you break this down, what we're dealing with here is child abusers, on a grand scale. They do this with their children, and ISRAEL is supposed to NEGOTIATE(capitulate)?!?

Anyone with a shred of grey matter can see from all the evidence that these people will NOT negotiate in good faith, will NOT stop attacking Israel, and will CELERATE the killing.

All the apologists here need to ask themselves a question:"Do you REALLY believe that the pals will stop the attacks if they get what they say they want? REALLY?"
If the answer is yes, you do not live in reality. Seek help.
Or, look at that picture again, along with some of the WTC and Pentagon. It IS, after all, the same type people responsible.

44 posted on 02/21/2002 3:33:18 AM PST by Long Cut
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To: xcon
You're on it!
45 posted on 02/21/2002 5:02:28 AM PST by knighthawk
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To: Long Cut
What I ment to say with 'Only the Saudis use our F-15's, not F-14's' I ment they use F-15's instead of F-14's.

A few years back the IMI offered an upgraded F-4, but there were no people interested in it, so the project got scrapped.

46 posted on 02/21/2002 5:07:51 AM PST by knighthawk
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To: knighthawk
I remember that. Wasn't it a re-engine project?
47 posted on 02/21/2002 5:29:21 AM PST by Long Cut
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Comment #48 Removed by Moderator

To: BenF
Children wanting to grow up and kill people is disturbing. I spend alot of time with my grandmother in Belfast. It's a place where (as my granny puts it) everyone walks around with one foot in the grave. These kids, like children in other war torn areas, are not like happy, go-lucky children in America. Death, destruction, war, etc. is all they know. This in no way excuses violence, but it goes a long way in explaining it. These kids have no positive role models. They have leaders who incite hatred and violence, leaders that draw Israeli attack, leaders that lead these children to slaughter, leaders that tell them that they must sacrifice their lives for the 'cause'. I'm actually surprised that any of them dream of PEACE at all. It's hard to dream of something you've never experienced. These kids don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of anything resembling a normal life.
49 posted on 02/21/2002 6:08:34 AM PST by constitutiongirl
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To: Darth Falar
The omens are good, long term.

For your final solution to the "Jewish problem"?

50 posted on 02/21/2002 6:42:51 AM PST by BenF
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To: constitutiongirl
You are correct, of course. Moreover, they have no future as long as their leaders, teachers, media, and clergy all speak of hatred, propaganda, and war. I see three possible solutions: Exterminate the Jews, exterminate the Arabs, or denazification of the Arabs. I prefer the third solution.
51 posted on 02/21/2002 6:47:14 AM PST by BenF
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To: Long Cut
Aviation and electronic jamming as well, I saw it introduced in the MilTech magazine years ago.
52 posted on 02/21/2002 11:29:27 AM PST by knighthawk
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To: The Documentary Lady
The State Police got caught trying to milk the feds and they admitted it. I guess you forgot the the Jewish Defense League leader that was arrested in CA. for allegedly attempting to blow up a Mosque and a congressman's office used to live in Michigan. Does this mean Michigan is a hotbed for Jewish terrorists?

Smoke and mirrors and diversion. Considering the amount of Arabs including you in your neck of the woods and their (and yours) empathy for Hezbullah and Palestinian terrorists it sounds like the police were exactly correct in their analysis. Shame.

53 posted on 02/21/2002 11:45:18 AM PST by Lent
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To: knighthawk
"I keep telling my friends and my family all the time, 'I want to be martyr.'"

If all of the Palestinians wish to be martyrs, wouldn't that suggest a rather easy solution to the 'troubles', that would please both sides?

Let all of the Palestinians be martyrs and that would end the conflict.

54 posted on 02/21/2002 11:56:03 AM PST by TC Rider
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Comment #55 Removed by Moderator

To: Lent; BenF; the Documentary Lady
While I disagree with DL on almost all things Pali/Israeli, it was BenF who called her over to this thread.

Baiting bulls is against the law in most places.

56 posted on 02/23/2002 5:21:31 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
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To: Alas Babylon!; Lent; the Documentary Lady
Just wanted to see if you could condemn the adults who were teaching these children to hate Jews. She couldn't even manage a little lip service....typical of someone who takes the Arab point of view on all things. I seriously doubt she even condemned the Arabs for celebrating the murder of Americans on 9/11.

I don't know about you, but I think that says something about the morality of a person and provides a perspective on their opinions.

57 posted on 02/24/2002 8:43:44 AM PST by BenF
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Comment #58 Removed by Moderator

To: The Documentary Lady
You're trying hard to convince me that one tribe is better than the other.

Not at all. What I was trying hard to do was to get you to condemn what these people are doing to their children. Instead, you state that the Israelis are doing similar things. You didn't need to do that. All you could have done was condemn the Arabs. Then, when you post something similar that the Israelis have done, you could have condemned that as well.

From where I sit there is very little difference between them.

I have no doubts about where you sit. No doubts at all.

59 posted on 02/24/2002 5:26:25 PM PST by BenF
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