What makes a 13-year-old boy get up in the morning, put a cartridge in a gun and go on a manhunt? It was not the first time that minors carried out murderous attacks, but last Saturday's attack, in which the boy from East Jerusalem coldly fired a gun at passers-by and wounded two of them, once again flooded the phenomenon of children in the service of terrorism. The boy, according to the video documenting the incident, underwent instruction and training and acted like a well-trained soldier. A 13-year-old soldier.
The Palestinian use of minors began in the second intifada.
In the years 2000-2003, 29 suicide attacks were carried out by young people under the age of 18, and about 40 attempts were foiled.
In 2004, the horrific cynical use of minors by terrorist organizations was revealed, when 14-year-old Hussam Abdu Bilal, a boy with an intellectual disability, ran towards an IDF checkpoint in Hawara with an explosive belt on him. He said that he was recruited in Nablus in exchange for one hundred shekels and a promise that he would be able to fulfill Intercourse with the insured virgins in the next world.
The exploitation of minors reached its peak in the "Third Intifada": according to the data of the security establishment, in 2015 39 minors participated in stabbing and shooting attacks, and in 2016 the number increased to 58.
In the following years, the number dropped to an average of ten stabbing and shooting attacks by minors per year.
In the first month of 2023 there were already two such attacks by minors.
role model
One of the notable minor hazards is Ahmed Manasara.
It is worth dwelling on his case to understand how a role model was created.
He was 13 years old when in 2015 he tried to murder innocent civilians in Pisgat Ze'ev, including Naor Ben Ezra, a boy his age whose only sin was riding a bicycle.
Manasara immediately became a Palestinian cultural hero.
After Abu Mazen claimed that the boy had been eliminated, Israel circulated a picture of him being treated well in the hospital.
Later, the moments from the attack where an injured man remained in the field until he was treated were revealed, as well as his interrogation by the police.
A month later, his actions were imitated by two boys aged 14 and 11, who attacked a light rail security guard in Jerusalem with a knife and scissors.
The 11-year-old was shot and wounded in the stomach, and since he was under the criminal age (12), he was arrested but not tried and upon his release from the hospital was sent to a closed residence.
Manasara was convicted of two attempted murders and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
"Minority does not grant immunity from appropriate punishment, including actual imprisonment, when a serious crime is committed," Judge Yoram Noam explained the relatively heavy punishment, "the punishment should express society's distaste for these acts whose purpose is to take human life on a nationalistic basis... and a reduction in the punishment may send a wrong message to the public".
Despite this, the sentence was shortened to nine and a half years following the appeal.
Manasara's public image has undergone a face lift beyond recognition.
From a dangerous threat who tried to murder a child, he became a poor victim, all thanks to a broad public campaign that called for his release and that presented him as a helpless child abused by the State of Israel.
Far-left activists, senior academic lecturers and also the "Together" movement, which is supported by German foundations, joined the campaign on Arabic social networks.
The UN even demanded that Israel release Manasara, claiming that the state "deprived him of his childhood and his family environment." His social, cultural, and family environment, which sent him to carry out the attack, was not mentioned.
The atmosphere this past week in the Arabic media and on the Palestinian street indicates that the next Palestinian national "mami" is the 13-year-old shooter, and it is interesting whether and how soon a petition will be circulated for his release as well.
A victim of society
What is the profile of the dangerous child?
What motivates him to act?
"In most cases, it's not about a lone wolf or an independent initiative, but about bands, sometimes really a kind of secret group of children that has social pressure within it. The various terrorist organizations reach out to one of the boys, usually the older one, recruit him, and he recruits more kids," she says Criminologist Dr. Anat Berko, Lt. Col. (Res.), former Member of Knesset from the Likud and author of the book "Woman Bomb", which dealt with women and minors in the service of terrorism.
"It's like a network of pedophiles. They ambush them near the school, lure them with money and promises of the next world, give them an atmosphere of action, and excite them by letting them touch weapons and practice with them. They also tell them that since they are children, if they are caught then they will be punished Easy, although this is not necessarily true. Usually the person who will carry out the attack itself is the socially weakest boy, the one who most needs to prove to everyone that he is a man. There is a criminological theory that deals with the crime of juvenile delinquents that talks about a subculture of fun, where the youth look for excitement and action and is created An atmosphere of come on, let's do whatever will meet this need. This theory is also very suitable for terrorist crimes. From the children's point of view, it is an exciting game of catch."
Barko points out that many times these are boys who come from a complex background or from an oppressive home, such as children of a second wife, or those who already have a background of violence and delinquency, or whose sister was caught in an act of immodesty and this is their way of purifying the family name.
"They go through weapons training and become friends with violence from a very young age. They come from a society that has a lot of violence in itself, with access to weapons and their use on a daily basis, as we unfortunately know in shootings at weddings."
Barko, who accumulated many hours of conversations with boys who were involved in terrorist offenses, interviewed their parents and their lawyers and also watched military trials of minor terrorists, came to the insight that the perception of masculinity and sexuality plays a significant role in the departure of young boys to terrorist attacks.
"The Palestinian child lives in a state of tremendous conflict. On the one hand, he wants to be free like a Western child, who wears jeans and a T-shirt and puts gel in his hair, and on the other hand, he lives in a society that has a lot of prohibitions, such that any sexual experience, even of light touch , is forbidden, so the only woman he can hug is his mother. That's why the hormonal sexual part plays a very strong role."
"I interviewed the first boy sent for a suicide attack. He was 15 and a half years old, stutters, and he told me that going on the attack 'was the first time I felt like a man, because I knew I would have virgins.' Another boy talked about beer, because in the next world they are promised rivers of wine This is a very strong statement that basically everything that is forbidden in this world is allowed in heaven. This is the strongest conflict in criminology - avoidance-approach. They badly want to live this life, but they can't. Basically, this is a society where there are two options - or to be a martyr Or not to be. This is the child's way of bringing himself to the front of the stage, to feel capable, to feel like a man. Obviously, all of this adds up to the incitement and dehumanization of Jews, so that the child does not think at all that those he hurts are human beings."
To what extent does what is defined as life under occupation affect the children?
"The victims of these children come first and foremost from within their society, which sends them to this and does nothing to rehabilitate them. The Palestinian Authority does not help at all in finding avenues of rehabilitation for these children. It is convenient, for political reasons, for children to sit in Israeli prisons. The organizations that are supposed to maintain Hello child, they don't talk about the fact that children are used, that they take the weakest in society, exploit them and throw them into this story.
"The leaders don't send their own children to carry out suicide attacks. How did one of the children tell me? 'The leader's son drives a Mercedes and studies at the university, but I was sent to the attack, and then they forgot me in prison and no one visits me, and I lost all the life I had outside.' In the end, these children are victims of the society they came from, which raises them in a violent and inciting atmosphere."
Lessons in hate
The wild incitement can be found in the media, social networks and especially in the education system.
Thus, for example, the 13-year-old who carried out the attack on Saturday as an 8th-grade student at the school in East Jerusalem was exposed to contents dripping with poison.
The Palestinian curriculum taught there includes descriptions of suicide attacks, in which Palestinians "cut the throats of enemy soldiers" and "put on explosive belts", accompanied by an illustration of Israeli soldiers being shot to death by a Palestinian gunman.
A book intended for an educational lesson devotes an entire chapter to the fact that holy names are "must" to ward off the enemy, that they bring honor and glory and guarantee entry to heaven.
The students are assigned the task of writing about Palestinian martyrs, and are taught that those who do not sacrifice themselves are weak.
The Jews are depicted as conspiratorial, powerful, evil and impure, who pose a threat to the sanctity of Islam.
A guide for 7th grade teachers teaches that Jews crushed the heads of children, set them on fire and threw them into wells.
Israelis are described as Satan in a song in an Arabic language textbook calling for the liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
In science textbooks, Newton's second law is illustrated with a picture of a masked Palestinian boy aiming a rifle at approaching soldiers.
The information was revealed by the international research and policy institute IMPACT-se, which researches and analyzes textbooks around the world to encourage peaceful content.
"Those countries that condemned the terrorist attacks at the weekend are among the biggest donors to the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA.
Most of the funding goes to education.
When exactly will it dawn on them that there is a direct, clear and inevitable line between learning hatred and violence and using violence in the real world?" wonders Marcus Sheff, the director general of the institute.
"Textbooks have enormous power to be a barrier to radicalization and to prevent terrorism. The countries of the region we studied realized the direct connection between education and terrorism and began to remove inciting and jihadist content that had existed for many years in their textbooks, regardless of Israel. Countries we studied, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United The Emirates and even Indonesia are carrying out reforms, which include the introduction of content of acceptance of the other, peace and tolerance and a reduction of content of hatred against Israel, Jews and Christians."
The institute conducted a comprehensive study on all the textbooks issued by the Ministry of Education of the Palestinian Authority, including those issued in 2018 as part of the new curriculum.
"We decided to go into the depth of the beam and understand what changes were made in the textbooks," says Eric Agassi, VP of IMPACT-se, "We found the deletion of every mention that was in the books about attempts to reach peace with Israel, and the introduction of a much larger amount of violent and anti-Semitic content than was in the past
The 13-year-old terrorist is a product of this curriculum, and I am very afraid that he heralds a new wave of attacks by minors."
Following the institute's report, international pressure was created on the Palestinian Authority to make changes to the textbooks. Agassi: "Those who finance the salaries of the Palestinian Ministry of Content Development, which is under the auspices of the Palestinian Ministry of Education, are the European Union and other countries."
When the pressure and harsh condemnations did not help, the Union decided to carry out an independent study of the Palestinian curriculum, which confirmed the Institute's study of anti-Semitism and the glorification of terrorism and violence.
Following this, a decision was made in the Parliament of the Union to freeze all funding to the Authority's Ministry of Education from May 2021.
The freeze lasted until June 2022, when the President of the Union visited the PA, received a promise from her superiors that the textbooks would be changed, and all funds were released.
However, the promise was not fulfilled, and in December the parliament decided that if evidence was found that repairs were not carried out as required, the funds would be frozen again.
The textbooks of the Palestinian Authority are taught in all areas of the Palestinian Authority and in Gaza, including in UNRA schools (with American funding), and also in many of the schools in East Jerusalem that are under the definition of "unofficial seller" or in private schools. So what are we to complain about the union European, if under the auspices of the State of Israel children grow up in hotbeds for terrorism?
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