by Nicole Lampert, Telegraph (Photo: Wikimedia Creative Commons)
At least two generations have been taught to stop at nothing to kill Jews
The letter from the son whose father was absent fighting a war started off normally enough: “Dear Dad, I miss you so much and I wish I could hug you and see you victorious.” But then, the missive from 10-year-old Ibrahim Sinwar to his Hamas leader father Yahya quickly took a dark, frightening turn: “I wish I could grow up, hold the Kalashnikov and shoot the Jews.”
Shocking. But also not. In the two decades Hamas has run Gaza, both Israelis and humanitarians inside the Palestinian territory have been warning about the increased radicalisation of Gaza’s children.
This starts in schools, shockingly often financed with money from British taxpayers: Arabic lessons which bring in the words “explosive belts” worn by suicide bombers, comprehension with texts about slashing the throats of Jews, Islamic classes in which self-sacrifice and martyrdom are encouraged.
At its heart is a culture of continued “resistance” against the Jewish state. This is a curriculum of terrorism, the radicalisation of hundreds of thousands, and one reason why it is so hard to fight Hamas, which, even now, is tightening its control of the part of the Gaza Strip it remains in fierce control of.
Controlling the minds of children has always been key to the success of the totalitarian state. The Nazis had the Hitler Youth, the Soviet Union had the Young Pioneers: young ideologues who were so infused with propaganda that some of them would turn on their own parents.