Op-ed in PA daily: Palestinians should not let their children die and then celebrate them as heroes
Headline: "Do not take part in the execution of our children by Israel!"
Op-ed by Muwaffaq Matar, Fatah Revolutionary Committee member and regular columnist for the official PA daily
“The alignment of the Israeli occupation, the ISIS of the Jewish settlers, and the terror of the occupation state are the first and last to be responsible for the fact that our men, women, young, and children of both sexes are rushing to the battle field and toward the inevitable end. However, responsibility also rests with the political parties, factions, and local and Arab partisan media outlets, which diminish the terror and crimes of the occupation’s officers, soldiers, and settlers, ‘Israel’s ISIS’, and at the same time magnify the image of the Palestinian victim…
Those who sit idly by are weakening the narrative of the ‘Palestinian victim,’ who has the historic and natural right over his homeland Palestine, against the narrative of the state of invaders, occupiers, and terrorist settlers. Israel still has the upper hand in terms of media, because it owns or controls global media outlets which influence the creation of global public opinion. Therefore, portraying a boy or a girl who are victims as ‘heroes’ who excelled in manufacturing means of resistance… is part of the proofs and evidence collected by the occupation in order to reinforce, as usual, its ‘victim narrative’, while all the Arab and international media outlets are preoccupied, intentionally or unintentionally, with the pools of blood being spilled daily in neighboring Arab countries. If the young of my land think, they will discover the truth about those who are riding the wave. If they look deeply into the situation in the Arab world, they will see how the young always have served only as fuel and steps on the ladder for the rising of ‘professional politicians.’…
Defending our children and young is a limitless national responsibility, and it should not be written in history that we sat there and looked at them bleeding until they died as Martyrs (Shahids), and then the factions competed among themselves to see who would succeed in adopting them [as theirs], and posters were printed and we walked in their funeral processions, and finally returned to our homes, concerned about the well-being of our children and sons, thinking and examining thousands of ways to protect them and distance them from the occupiers and settlers’ blood-lust cycle.”
Op-ed by Muwaffaq Matar, Fatah Revolutionary Committee member and regular columnist for the official PA daily
“The alignment of the Israeli occupation, the ISIS of the Jewish settlers, and the terror of the occupation state are the first and last to be responsible for the fact that our men, women, young, and children of both sexes are rushing to the battle field and toward the inevitable end. However, responsibility also rests with the political parties, factions, and local and Arab partisan media outlets, which diminish the terror and crimes of the occupation’s officers, soldiers, and settlers, ‘Israel’s ISIS’, and at the same time magnify the image of the Palestinian victim…
Those who sit idly by are weakening the narrative of the ‘Palestinian victim,’ who has the historic and natural right over his homeland Palestine, against the narrative of the state of invaders, occupiers, and terrorist settlers. Israel still has the upper hand in terms of media, because it owns or controls global media outlets which influence the creation of global public opinion. Therefore, portraying a boy or a girl who are victims as ‘heroes’ who excelled in manufacturing means of resistance… is part of the proofs and evidence collected by the occupation in order to reinforce, as usual, its ‘victim narrative’, while all the Arab and international media outlets are preoccupied, intentionally or unintentionally, with the pools of blood being spilled daily in neighboring Arab countries. If the young of my land think, they will discover the truth about those who are riding the wave. If they look deeply into the situation in the Arab world, they will see how the young always have served only as fuel and steps on the ladder for the rising of ‘professional politicians.’…
Defending our children and young is a limitless national responsibility, and it should not be written in history that we sat there and looked at them bleeding until they died as Martyrs (Shahids), and then the factions competed among themselves to see who would succeed in adopting them [as theirs], and posters were printed and we walked in their funeral processions, and finally returned to our homes, concerned about the well-being of our children and sons, thinking and examining thousands of ways to protect them and distance them from the occupiers and settlers’ blood-lust cycle.”