When children are killed

When children are killed

In a world that reserves particular disgust for predators who kill children, one has to wonder at the political mentality that celebrates such killers

By Gil Troy
The Montreal Gazette
August 22, 2003

In Western civilization, there are few crimes as heinous as the murder of a child. Yes, cold-blooded murder is cold-blooded murder. An innocent victim is an innocent victim, regardless of age. Nevertheless, even in our culture, inundated as it is with violence, reporters, prosecutors, juries and the public reserve a special disgust for those predators who kill a clueless baby, a vulnerable toddler, a trusting youth, a growing teenager.

This spring, people in Toronto and throughout Canada were particularly revolted to hear of the death and dismemberment of Holly Jones, who was often referred to in media reports as a "10-year-old schoolgirl" to conjure up those deep and quite understandable feelings. Western military lore is rife with stories of soldiers who hesitated before firing when civilians, and especially children, were caught in the crossfire.

Regardless of where they stand politically, good people throughout the world need to wonder what the latest Jerusalem suicide bomber was thinking in the last few moments of his life. Surveying a bus filled with dozens of babies, toddlers, pre-teens and teens, hearing their laughter and their cries, watching some sleep and some play, did he pause at all? Did he have any second thoughts before slaughtering at least six children and wounding as many as 40? Or did he, the father of two, husband of a pregnant woman, simply see more steps on his delusional ladder to heaven? In his perverted ideology, are children considered to be a particularly valuable target, or are they considered to be unlucky bystanders?

One wonders what kind of political culture breeds such a monster, who does not value his life or that of others, be they old or young. One wonders what kind of society could shoot off fireworks as some did in Hebron, distribute candy as some did in Lebanon, celebrating the deaths of Shmuel Taubenfeld, 3 months, Shmuel Zargari, 11 months, Tehilla Nathanson, 3, Issachar Reinitz, 9, Avraham Bar Or, 12, Binyamin Bergman, 15, and others.

Of course, over the last three years in particular, we have been told repeatedly to contextualize, to balance, even to sympathize with these supposedly poor, oppressed desperate bombers. It has become fashionable to remove the moral calculus from the equation, as everyone is secure in their haze of moral equivalence that there are outrages on both sides, and that each side believes its own propaganda and, thus, justifies its own motives and actions. The fact this murderer, studying for a master's degree at A-Najah University in Nablus, was well educated and at least reasonably comfortable, like so many other suicide bombers, including the Sept. 11 killers, is often overlooked. Even Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, while offering his "real sorrow" to the families of the victims, neglected the moral issue, only suggesting "this horrible act ... doesn't serve the interests of the Palestinian people."

Next Thursday, social activists throughout the world will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's sublime "I have a dream" speech. As the whole world watched and a quarter of a million blacks and whites filled the mall in Washington in 1963, King's words rang out from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Contrary to many revisionists, King was no namby-pamby preacher simply dreaming of harmony. King, in fact, was a revolutionary, who warned, "It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. ... There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights."

King, however, also warned his own people, "In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. ... Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."

King's message resonated throughout the world because it said, regardless of the moral rights and wrongs of the origins of a conflict, how you fight is as important as why you fight.

Some Palestinians have not just ignored this message but inverted it, claiming why you fight can justify any way to fight. That distortion is dismaying enough. That their apologists the world over have forgotten this important teaching - and, thus, rationalized and implicitly encouraged mass murder, including the killing of children - is also unconscionable.

Gil Troy teaches history at McGill University.

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