NO PLACE TO RUN
The War On Children
Wars don't end for children
but the right education can make a difference for them and for society.
by sg crowell
In 1946, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote about a visit to the Zeilsheim displaced persons camp in Germany. She met with Jewish people who had survived the Holocaust. She asked, “When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”
It is unforgivable that children are assaulted, violated, murdered and yet our conscience is not revolted nor our sense of dignity challenged. This represents a fundamental crisis of our civilization…Let us claim children as "zones of peace". Graça Machel, Mozambique's first post-independence Minister for Education.
One does not need to claim ownership to the pain of too little or of too much. In other words, one negotiates realities much as the sun negotiates life cycles. One cannot hold on to an illusion, the form that there will be infinite land for future ownership however equitable the distribution. One can only negotiate the use value of existing land through reciprocal kinship ties towards whatever form occurs. This is called love. To do this one needs to negotiate the invention of the devil and put it to good use. (sg crowell, 1989)
Wars past and present around the world, often one-sided, attest to the darkest side of humanity. Chronic wars and violent brushfires are affecting and killing children.
Imagine a small space where millions of people have nowhere to go. They have no defense, no army, no tanks, no supply chains and no legal standing. There is no space for dissent. Citizens are herded like cattle and cruelly told that one space will be safer than another space, and then slaughtered. They remain unrecognized and their plight is normalized in the world that should have remembered our history in the name of humanity.
While the Israel/Palestine tragedy has all the abuse of civilians and children in unseen wars around the world, it carries its own story.
It is a story of revenge and brutality. It is a story of two nations bound by a militant form of Zionism where effectively powerful nations, including the United States, whatever the rhetoric, perhaps in ignorance or in full knowledge, support the indoctrination and, as the evidence mounts, the deliberate killing of children.
Instead of the plea "never again" voiced by young Jews and non-Jews, "The Holocaust" story is perpetuated by a hard right Israeli government as a matter of "self defense" with no understanding that they have become them.
As far as the international community, to complicitly allow one nation to conduct genocide; to kill off as many people as possible in the name of self-defense, is very much the story of children who have died with no chance at life. Those children who survive carry both a burden as well as a gift we must not refuse - the future.
Citizens of Israel, supporting countries, and politicians do not leave their safe place on behalf of these future generations.Through decades they never see, aside from the painful loss of their friends and relatives on October 7, the brutality of revenge in the name of “self defense.” The consequence of this passivism is not better security but a more dangerous future.
A powerful movement of young Jewish and non-Jewish protesters from all walks of life in America and around the world represents a clarion call for a ceasefire. However, the term has lost its meaning with failed negotiations and self-interested politics. More recently the focus of the worldwide movement has been a plea to stop sending arms that kill children. They are armed with a simple truth. People are dying, tortured, and humiliated.
The answer to their protest has been rehearsed accusations of anti-semitism when in Zionist terms it is the other way around.
In real terms, young people around the world understand the distractions of useless babble about a one or two-state solutions in so-called "negotiations" while innocent people die. They understand the rampant self interest on the part of nations, and the escalating violations of the international rule of law in the name of self-defense by a country that calls itself a democracy.
While so many in a younger generation are fighting back against a souless passivity, whether they are Israeli or Palestinian, younger children have no defense against generational wars that have taught children how to hate. The message is structured by a political messianic nationalistic paradigm embedded in households and classrooms.
Miko Peler, a former Israeli soldier and author of The General’s Son shares his story of indoctrination at home and in his education which began at a young age. “We were the infantry unit. We were told about Palestinians, “if anyone looks at you funny break every bone in their body…I wondered, why are we doing this”?
Imagine the enculturation behind these words. Israeli and Palestinian children in different ways are victims of a mythic test where heroic images guide the story of Israel as a small state fighting barbarians at the gate. In this story militarism marks Israel’s street names and school books. The military is above the law.
The minimum age requirement for compulsory military service in Israel is 18 years old. Israeli citizens, both males and females, are required to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) upon reaching this age. The average age is approximately 20 years old.
About 43% of Gaza's population is 14 years old or younger. The territory's median age was just 18 in 2020, making Gaza home to one of the world's youngest populations.
These are our young.
In Israeli's disproportionate war following October 7, and before, young soldiers are sanctioned to indiscriminately maim, torture, dehumanize, and kill civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, including young children throwing rocks or maybe just in the wrong place, in case they grow up to be terrorists when in a terrible irony they have become terrorists.
After October 7 shocking videos appeared of young Israeli soldiers and by young Israeli soldiers recording destruction, torture, dehumanizing methods, and laughing. A Zeteo documentary titled Israel’s Reel Extremism released this summer shows videos of "...soldiers humiliating bound Palestinians, ransacking their homes, joking as they detonate schools and whole districts, and laughing as they launch high explosive ordnance into densely-packed areas."
In Consortium News, Ramzy Baroud writes, "Raping prisoners, leaking videos of the gruesome acts, and carrying out the same horrific deed, again and again are all part of the Israeli strategy — that of restoring fear."[following October 7].
In the severence of the young from humanity and a indoctrinated lust for revenge (called self defense) the young soldiers do not see themselves as the barbarians nor do their parents. They do not understand that the culture of fear is killing their own society.
Israeli writer and expert on Israel/Palastine history, and author of "Drinking the Sea at Gaza”, Amira Hass shares her horror at unbelievable depth of parents' denial when they allow their children to be exposed as war criminals or when their children express so much hatred and post vitriol on social media about the death of children without a conscience. She recalls a media image of the young mother carrying her baby as part of a group determined to stop aid that would feed starving Palestinian children. The loss of humanity reaches generations.
The end of a war with its uneasy peace and depleted resources does not mean the war ends for either Israeli or Palestinian children.
Crimes and war crimes against children around the world include murder, rape, mutilation,displacement, injury and malnourishment as visible examples. What is less visible is the extent to which horrific and long-lasting wars undermine the very foundation of children’s lives. As homes are destroyed, communities are splintered,and their families and friends are killed their trust in humanity erodes, and they live with emotional distress.
Whether they are Israeli or Palestinian, children are weaponized in the name of war whether in word or deed. There are generational effects as children are killed wounded or managed to grow older without any real peace. Their places are taken by new children and thus the destruction of young lives is perpetuated from one generation to the next.
Adolescents that survive face their own hell. Many have lost role models and adults that provided positive guidance. They might have to take on responsibilities with the loss of their parents that they are not prepared for. They've lost the opportunity to find their own identity. They are at high risk for serious depression and in the worst of circumstances suicide or violence. They have difficulty imagining a future that holds a meaningful place for them. These realities mean they are more open to manipulation by recruiters.
In the above war without end the futures of children are stolen. While many thousands of children in Palestine are killed directly from bullets and bombs, and it appears deliberately as evidence mounts, many more children have died or will die from malnutrition and disease due to Israeli interference with aid and the loss of water and sanitation along with health services.
The most vulnerable children are under the age of five and already malnourished. For these youngest children most of their health problems are linked to malnutrition. They are twice as likely to die compared to other age groups if they are evenly even mildly malnourished.
Too many children of war of all ages will live their lives crippled by physical disabilities and poor health.
There is hope and that hope lies in the teachers and students who against all odds learn a better way during and after war toward peaceful co-existence.
Education is a road to peace for the children of war and for society.
The recovery and reintegration of children of war through education can define a pathway to peace for a society. However, it is not a particularly easy task for teachers during war and in a post-war environment.
Building resilence through new understandings is not a short term task for teachers, society, and the international community. Still, the rewards are there. Chronic often one-sided wars influence many generations over time. Yet, that also holds true of education, however intangible that may seem.
In Arab News, The nightmare has been ongoing for years and Rayan experienced that terrorizing journey for more than a year — of soldiers waiting behind barbed wire, of mysterious creatures hiding behind trees, of hands grabbing little bodies, of children screaming for their parents, beseeching God and running in all directions.
Following October 7 Israel strategically heighten a culture of fear in order to to regain control following the attack by Hamas. Over 17,000 Palestinian children have been killed as of August 2024. Many children are orphaned. Addressing that actively perpetuated cultural of fear is challenging.
Teachers work to find ways to address childrens' fear and losses. However, it is an uphill battle. It is common for schools to be targeted in war zones and then occupied by military forces.Even as bombs continue to fall, teachers have to alternatively find safe spaces to develop non-violent daily activities that start the process of healing and reconciliation for children of different ages in order to break from the violence of the past and the present.
Through organizational support from the international community and their own innovative practices teachers in war zones have learned how to integrate healing practices into their curriculum. Their priority is to bring stability in an environment of constant threat by establishing routine practices that offer some sense of normalcy and continuity in different settings.
Education not only addresses the healing that needs to take place. There is also a psychosocial trauma that runs more deeply in the minds and hearts of children. A deeply rooted kind of trauma can be associated with a society's history of war in psychosocial terms that speaks to the generational effects of war. This is where education can help build resilency and reconciliation.
Gabrielle Rifkind, a group analyst and psychotherapist, consults with countries at war as well as groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. She says "We tend to talk about trauma, but actually we're talking about very deep experiences that have created so much psychic disturbance that it makes it very difficult to understand the experience of the other, and until that trauma's addressed or recognized, any kind of empathy is very difficult."
Graça Machel, Mozambique's first post-independence Minister for Education produced a United Nations report in 1996. She wrote that children have been generally excluded from history or memorized as vulnerable and inactive martyrs. From a historical perspective, She says this imagined passivity cannot be maintained. Their agency must be recognized.
For vulnerable adolescent children addressing their fears, anxiety, and deeply rooted trauma means recognizing and encouraging their agency as an individual and as part of a group in the context of war and post-war environments. This might involve instilling pride and self determination through learning more about his or her culture and history and engaging in empowering conversations that help build resilency given the reality of circumstances.
The sociocultural aspects of education are a tough challenge for teachers and the children of war. It is a process that involves breaking down simplistic us versus them narratives and moving into the complexity of history where truths that emerge can be messy.
For Israeli students, The Holocaust is a messy subject with many potential versions that have been made simple as a call to arms that sends a message of fear and revenge. This calls for contextual understanding and critical thinking that allows questions of moral equivalancy in war and contexts such as moral certainty related to everyday lives.
The goal of a teacher is not to convert, but to help bring context by employing maieutic methods inclusive of children's knowledge. It is a situation where the teacher and children share a learning experience about sociocultural meanings that challenge the moral certainties used to justify violence. For instance, what is Zionism? What are some layered meanings of martyrdom which might be associated with the death of a soldier or perhaps the death of a woman in childbirth.
The little boy with olive skin, innocent face and bright eyes fell on the ground while being chased by Israeli soldiers, who accused him and his peers of throwing stones.
In psychosocial terms It might be a conversation about throwing stones which also has layered meanings for a child of war of perhaps fear of monsters or an expression of defiance against tyranny.
Faris Odeh throws a stone at an Israeli tank during the Second Intifada. He is later shot by Israeli soldiers. The image became a popular symbol for Palestinian resistance (wikipedia).
According to a September 2, 2024 report by the Al Mezand Center for Human Rights, Israeli attacks have destroyed about two-thirds of the public schools in Gaza. and increasingly in the West Bank. Additionally, the Palestinian Minister of Education reported that more than 80 percent of the buildings housing higher education institutions have been destroyed by the Israeli military.
In Worldcrunch,"[b]esides repeated bombings of school buildings, the Israeli army also has turned many universities into military barracks and interrogation sites, before blowing them up. That’s part of a premeditated policy to destroy Gaza's entire education system."
In Ukraine, UNICEF reports (with the caveat that the true numbers are likely higher) that since February 2022 more than 1,300 educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed. More destruction of schools occurred on the first day of school in September 2024.
Along with the targeted killings of teachers and students, the destruction of the educational system in Gaza, including random closures of educational facilities thanks to ad hoc and punitive Israeli lawmaking, means that teachers face discontinuous access to education; enough so that many children are receiving no education at all.
Schools are central to most communities and invaders know that. During war schools maybe bombed or occupied, but the education they represent plays a central role in holding a community together during war and as it rebuilds.
Ideally schools are protected under international humanitarian law regarding the bombings, targeted killings, and army occupations of school facilities as a violation of human rights and other rights, which can constitute war crimes.
However, since there is no enforcement from international bodies or enough support from the international community, rebuilding an educational system in Gaza will take many years. This is a guaranteed destruction of a society as many survivors will leave Gaza with their children.
In the absence of any real infrastructure in war torn Gaza and the constant bombardment in Ukraine, the resilence of teachers and students is critical to the future of communities and society as a whole.
In the classroom, teachers learn healing skills and empowerment approaches. But, also unlike peacetime teaching, teachers in war zones take on roles far beyond the classroom whether during war or in the post-war environment. They maintain connections with communities and frequently take on leadership roles. They might engage in community tasks such as helping to cook, locating food sources, making regular check-ins with students, and importantly, networking and building a volunteer base. Filling these multiple roles is demanding.
In response, Anastasiia Holovatiuk a Ukrainian teacher says with admiration "watching these kids you understand it is necessary to hold on..."