Tag Archives: Children

Israel’s War Crimes Record: Killing and Maiming Children in Armed Conflicts

A Criminal Offender at Large, UN Listing or Not

By Eva Bartlett
June 8, 2015
RT June 5, 2015

Reports have come out that the UN was considering adding Israel to the list of “grave violations against children in armed conflict.” As detailed below, Israeli army and Israel’s state policies are systematically violent against Palestinian children.

A recent Independent article noted that [Special Envoy for Children and Armed Conflict Leila]

“Zerrougui’s draft report cited IDF attacks on schools and hospitals during the 2014 war in the Gaza Strip…”

Even though the UN has historically not taken strong action against any of Israel’s war crimes over the decades, let alone those specifically against Palestinian children, Israel has reportedly exerted pressure to be de-listed from the draft list, with seeming success.

The Independent wrote,

“UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, however, is said to be leaning towards not including Israel in the list, amid what several diplomatic sources anonymously said was intense lobbying from Israel.”

Apparently, Israel thinks such call for its joining the list is “a heinous and hypocritical attempt to besmirch the image of Israel and it is doomed to fail,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon reportedly said.

In fact, the UN should have listed Israel from at least 2009 when, as the UN website notes, “the Security Council decided to also list armed forces and groups who kill and maim children, commit sexual violence against children, and attack schools and hospitals.”

Does Israel violate the six areas detailed?

Five out of six, most definitely:

– Killing or maiming of children; [See below]

– Sexual violence against children; [The Israeli army routinely threatens and enacts sexual abuse of Palestinian children]

– Attacks against schools or hospitals; [The Israeli army routinely fires ammunition and tear gas at Palestinian schools; it has repeatedly bombed schools and hospitals in Gaza]

– Abduction of children; [See below]

– Denial of humanitarian access for children. [Israel’s blockade on Gaza strangles the medical sector; Israel routinely denies exit to Palestinians ( including children) for medical care outside of Gaza; the illegal wall Israel has constructed throughout much of the West Bank prevents Palestinians (including children) from accessing medical care.] [see also: Al Mezan Releases Factsheet on Gazan Children’s Access to Medical Care]

– Recruitment or use of children by armed forces and groups; [This is the one point which strictly speaking doesn’t apply. However, the Israeli army has used Palestinian children as human shields]

Members of the Israeli army themselves have admitted various crimes. A Breaking the Silence report“Children and Youth – Soldiers’ Testimonies 2005-2011” noted: “This booklet reveals how physical violence is often exerted against children, whether in response to accusations of stone-throwing or, more often, arbitrarily.” Further testimonies following the the July/August 2014 war on Gaza highlight the brutality meted out on Palestinians (including children).

Killing or maiming of children

Having between November 2008 and March 2013 lived a cumulative three years in the Gaza Strip, including during two Israeli waged massacres of Palestinians in Gaza, I present three (of too many) cases of Israel targeting children, of which I have personal knowledge. On January 4, 2009, Shahed Abu Halima lay cradled in her mother’s arms, the family terrorized like Palestinians all over Gaza by incessant Israeli bombing. Their area, al-Atatra, west of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, was particularly hard-hit, and had been invaded by Israeli tanks.

Of the two shells that hit baby Shahed’s home, at least one was white phosphorous, raining clumps of the chemical weapon down on the family. The flames which enveloped Shahed’s body were not extinguishable, nor could her mother Sabah see through the smoke and flames to reach the infant. Shahed’s dog-eaten, charred corpse was only found days later when Palestinian medics were finally allowed to enter the area. [see:Next Time It Will Hurt More]

Also on January 4, 2009, Shireen Abu Helou continued nursing her dying baby, Farah (“joy” in Arabic), in a futile effort to bring the infant comfort while her family took cover from Israeli fire behind a bulldozed dirt mound in the Zeitoun district just south of Gaza City (infamous for the herding of entire families from the Samouni clan into one building and repeatedly bombing it; infamous for the point blank shootings of individuals, including 4-year-old Ahmed shot dead after crying about his father’s execution). One-year-old Farah did not survive the Israeli sniper’s bullet to her abdomen, her intestines falling out as she bled to death over the course of a few hours. [see: They Killed Me Three Times] On November 21, 2012, a 14-year-old boy asked his father for 10 shekels, to go to the small store up the road to buy food for his siblings who hadn’t eaten anything but bread for the past five days of Israeli bombing. The bombing had not quite stopped, but Nader Abu Mghaseeb believed he was safe, a ceasefire due to be enforced in just under two hours. He was incorrect. Minutes after the precision drone strike hit Nader, his father rushed out to find the dying, tangled mass of flesh that had been his son. In Deir al-Balah’s al-Aqsa hospital, I saw the teen’s mangled corpse brought in.

His stunned father stood outside trying to comprehend that Israeli-fired, precision drone technology had obliterated his clearly unarmed 14-year-old son. [see: Killing before the Calm: “Israeli” Attacks on Palestinian Civilians Escalated before Cease-fire] Two years and many Palestinian child martyrs and maimings later, during the July/August 2014 Israeli massacre of Gaza, four small boys ran for their lives across an empty Gaza beach as the Israeli navy chased them with shelling, eventually hitting their prey. The shelling of the Bakr boys, aged nine to 11, was recorded by a number of Palestinian and foreign journalists camped out at the nearby Deira hotel, many of whom broke down at witnessing this savagery.

Of the July/August Israeli massacre of Gaza, Defense for Children International-Palestine’s (DCI-Palestine) April 16, 2015 report noted: “DCIP independently verified the deaths of 547 Palestinian children among the killed in Gaza, 535 of them as a direct result of Israeli attacks. Nearly 68 percent of the children killed by Israeli forces were 12 years old or younger. Those who survived these attacks will continue to pay the price for many years. More than 1,000 children suffered injuries that rendered them permanently disabled, according to OCHA.”

The assault on Palestinian children is, of course, not merely limited to its times of bombing Gaza. Almost daily in Gaza’s border regions and on the sea, children are machine-gunned and shelled by the genocidal bully of the region, under the pretext of “security.” Having witnessed this on countless occasions, myself under fire with the brave farmers, I can say one hundred percent affirmatively that they posed no security threat to the well-armed Israeli army (nor navy). In the rest of occupied Palestine, whether during the criminal routine Israeli army invasions and lock-downs of West Bank and Jerusalem areas, or during demonstrations against the illegal Wall stealing yet more Palestinian land, or merely randomly,

Palestinian children are targeted by Israeli live ammunition, tear gas canisters, and hands-on brutality, not only by the so-called “most morale army” but also the unspoken of proxy soldiers: those vile, racist, illegal Jewish colonists who (claiming God’s approval) abuse Palestinians of all ages, without consequences. Early in the morning of July 2, 2014, Mohammed Abu Khdeir went missing while going to mosque for morning prayers in occupied Jerusalem. His slight body was found a few hours later charred and beaten. Before his Jewish colonist tormentors poured gas down his throat and lit him alive, they beat he the 16 year old with a blunt object to his head. The autopsy report “showed soot in the victim’s lungs and respiratory tract, indicating he was alive and breathing while he was being burnt.”

The systematic brutality of Israel’s colonists and Israeli soldiers against Palestinians is met with virtually no reprimand by Israel. On their “Settler violence: Lack of accountability,” rights group B’Tselem noted in 2011 (updated January 2013):

“When Israelis harm Palestinians, the authorities implement an undeclared policy of forgiveness, compromise, and leniency in punishment. Israeli security forces have done little to prevent settler violence or to arrest offenders. Many acts of violence have never been investigated; in other cases, investigations have been drawn out and resulted in no action being taken against anyone.”

In November 2013, Palestinian rights group Al Haq issued a new report (“Institutionalised Impunity: Israel’s Failure to Combat Settler Violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”) and noted: “According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the number of settler attacks resulting in Palestinian casualties and property damage increased by over 144 percent in 2011, compared to 2009. In 2013, the report of the United Nations International Fact-Finding Mission on Settlements highlighted the failure of the Israeli authorities to enforce the law by investigating such incidents and taking measures against their perpetrators. The Fact-Finding Mission came to the “clear conclusion that there is institutionalised discrimination against the Palestinian people when it comes to addressing violence. Acts of settler violence are intended, organised, and publicly represented to influence the political decisions of Israeli State authorities.” Throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem, Jewish colonists routinely run over Palestinian children. Two examples include an October 2014 hit and run near Ramallah of two 5 year old Palestinian girls, one of whom—Inas Shawkat Khalil—died from her injuries.

Child abduction and imprisonment

According to Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association’s April 2015 update, 182 Palestinian children are imprisoned by Israel, including 26 under the age of 16. They note that“8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested since 2000.” DCI-Palestine notes: “Israel is the only country in the world that automatically prosecutes children in military courts that lack basic and fundamental fair trial guarantees. Interrogations tend to be coercive, including a variety of verbal abuse, threats and physical violence that ultimately result in a confession.”

They further note that most Israeli-imprisoned Palestinian children are nabbed in the middle of the night, something youths from Resistance villages like Bil’in are well-familiar with. Bil’in, known for its popular demonstrations against the illegal, land-grabbing Wall, has lost many a martyr, including children to Israel’s brutal attempts at stifling dissent (On that note: to all the media that leapt on the false, “Bashar is killing unarmed protesters band-wagon,” Israel is actually doing so). That the UN is even considering not including Israel on the list speaks further volumes to the uselessness of this institution, a body that serves only to put the odd band-aid on the seeping Palestinian wound and to endorse criminal bombings of sovereign nations. In any case, Israel need not worry that anyone is trying to “besmirch” its reputation.

It has proven quite adept at doing that all on its own. Every blown-off Palestinian child’s head, every Palestinian child behind Israeli bars, every Mohammed Abu Khdair tortured and killed by Jewish colonists, and every colonists’ intentional running over of Palestinian children “besmirches” what is left of the racist, genocidal state’s reputation, with or without UN recognition.

‘A Nation in Decline’: Majority of US Public School Students Live in Poverty

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Devastating report reveals downward trajectory for today’s generation of learners

By Jon Queally
January 18, 2015
Common Dreams, January 17, 2015

Latest findings on poverty come as the Department of Education and lawmakers in Congress begin new debate about the reauthorization of controversial law. (Photo: carl_hfser/flickr)

As it turns out, there’s no high-stakes test that can account for this.

A new study released on Friday shows that more than half of students enrolled in U.S. public schools live in poverty, a measurement that the report’s authors say places the U.S. on the road to overall social decline.

Released by the Southern Education Foundation, the new analysis (pdf) used the most recent national census figures available to confirm that 51 percent of the students across the nation’s public schools were low income in 2013.

Low income students are now a majority of the schoolchildren attending the nation’s public schools, according to new research. (Credit: Southern Education Foundation)

According to the report:

In 40 of the 50 states, low income students comprised no less than 40 percent of all public schoolchildren. In 21 states, children eligible for free or reduced-price lunches were a majority of the students in 2013.

Most of the states with a majority of low income students are found in the South and the West. Thirteen of the 21 states with a majority of low income students in 2013 were located in the South, and six of the other 21 states were in the West.

Mississippi led the nation with the highest rate: 71 percent, almost three out of every four public school children in Mississippi, were low-income. The nation’s second highest rate was found in New Mexico, where 68 percent of all public school students were low income in 2013.

In addition to documenting the number of students who receive some form of government assistance during their school day, including key programs that offer free or reduced-price lunches, the report makes plain that the pervasive poverty among the nation’s young people is having a direct and negative impact on student learning and the public education system’s ability to meet its goal of providing adequate education for all.

“A lot of people at the top are doing much better, but the people at the bottom are not doing better at all. Those are the people who have the most children and send their children to public school.” —Michael Rebell, Campaign for Educational Equity

“No longer can we consider the problems and needs of low income students simply a matter of fairness,” the report states. “Their success or failure in the public schools will determine the entire body of human capital and educational potential that the nation will possess in the future. Without improving the educational support that the nation provides its low income students – students with the largest needs and usually with the least support — the trends of the last decade will be prologue for a nation not at risk, but a nation in decline.”

Speaking with the Washington Post, Michael A. Rebell of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College at Columbia University noted how the poverty rate has been increasing even as some economic indicators have improved. “We’ve all known this was the trend, that we would get to a majority, but it’s here sooner rather than later,” Rebell said. “A lot of people at the top are doing much better, but the people at the bottom are not doing better at all. Those are the people who have the most children and send their children to public school.”

The latest findings come as the Department of Education and lawmakers in Congress begin new debate about the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ASEA), more broadly known by updated versions or programs supported by that law— No Child Left Behind (NCLB) under President George W. Bush and the Race To The Top Program (RTTT) under President Obama.

Opponents of the fixation by both Democrats and Republicans on high-stakes standardized testing and other planks of the “corporate education reform agenda” are hoping that ASEA re-authorization is their next opportunity to point out the failure of the policies codified in both NCLB and RTTT.

As Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, said earlier this week in response to a policy speech by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan: “Any law that doesn’t address our biggest challenges—funding inequity, segregation, the effects of poverty—will fail to make the sweeping transformation our kids and our schools need.”

She continued, “Current federal educational policy—No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and waivers—has enshrined a focus on testing, not learning, especially high-stakes testing and the consequences and sanctions that flow from it. That’s wrong, and that’s why there is a clarion call for change. The waiver strategy and Race to the Top exacerbated the test-fixation that was put in place with NCLB, allowing sanctions and consequences to eclipse all else. [Based on Duncan’s speech], it seems the secretary may want to justify and enshrine that status quo and that’s worrisome.”

In a article for The Nation magazine last year, poverty and education experts Greg Kaufmann and Elaine Weiss described the huge body of research which has shown the various factors associated with how poverty affects student learning, including: “parents’ educational attainment; how parents read to, play with and respond to their children; the quality of early care and early education; access to consistent physical and mental health services and healthy food.”

What’s missing from the larger debate, according to Kaufmann and Weiss, is understanding “the impact of concentrated poverty—and of racial and socioeconomic segregation—on student achievement” in a much wider context. “It’s time that we stop ignoring [the impacts of poverty and inequalityon education],” they wrote. “The past few decades have seen increasing income polarization, with the top 1 percent reaping the vast majority of societal gains, the middle class shrinking, and those at the bottom losing ground. As a result, concentrated poverty is more potent and relevant an issue than ever.”

And according to an analysis of the SEF findings by Education Week, the increasing levels of poverty among students will, and should be, a larger part of the current debate about education policy:

Schools have, of course, been confronted by the challenges of poverty for years, but crossing the majority threshold certainly creates a powerful conversation point in debates on the local, state, and federal levels about issues ranging from equity and accountability to student supports.

“That deepening poverty likely will complicate already fraught political discussions on how to educate American students, as prior research has shown students are significantly more at risk academically in schools with 40 percent or higher concentrations of poverty,” Education Week wrote when it covered growing trends of poverty in 2013.

And, as Rules for Engagement previously reported, poor families are increasingly moving into the suburbs and living in areas with high concentrations of poverty, creating dimensions to the debate.

The new majority of low-income students is yet another new reality for American educators.

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD) Drugs Greatly Decrease Academic Performance in Children, Study Finds

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By Ethan A. Huff
January 5, 2015
Natural News, January 3 2015

Children who take mind-altering medications like Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Adderall (amphetamine and dextroamphetamine) for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been shown in a new peer-reviewed study to perform worse in school than if they weren’t taking the substances at all.

Researchers from Princeton University, Cornell University and the University of Toronto found that the administration of these drugs to children, which is supposedly to help them remain calm and focus in class, actually leaves students at a deficit when it comes to paying attention and learning in a formal academic setting.

These shocking findings, which were published recently in the Journal of Health Economics, reveal that increasing the use of stimulants isn’t helping children any more than loading them up with anti-psychotic medications helps them think more rationally. Once again, pharmaceutical drugs are shown to harm the normal thought process and inhibit natural human cognition.

Back in 1997, some rules changed in the Canadian province of Quebec that made it easier for people to access prescription drugs. In the 10 years following this change, the number of children taking stimulants in Quebec more than doubled, with an astounding 44 percent of Canada’s ADHD prescriptions now going to the province.

This massive increase made for an easier time studying the outcomes of ADHD drugs in children, the results of which are sure to surprise many parents. Based on the researchers’ work, children on ADHD drugs fared slightly worse than other children and were far more likely not to finish school without having to first repeat a grade, suggesting added learning impairment.

“We find little evidence of improvement in either the medium or the long run” from the use of ADHD drugs in children, wrote the authors. “Our results… suggest that expanding medication in a community setting had little positive benefit and may have had harmful effects given the average way these drugs are used in the community.”

ADHD drugs aren’t safe, can cause permanent health damage

The obvious irony here is that many a parent has been hoodwinked into drugging his or her child into a state of statue-like docility with promises that doing so would lessen classroom outbursts and improve learning capacity. To the contrary, the effects of these mind-altering medications is proving to be disastrous, potentially causing long-term brain damage in the process.

Psychologist L. Alan Sroufe addressed this in a 2012 opinion piece for The New York Times, warning that the long-term use of ADHD medications in children inflicts more harm than good.

“Sadly, few physicians and parents seem to be aware of what we have been learning about the lack of effectiveness of these drugs,” wrote Sroufe. “[W]hen given to children over long periods of time, [ADHD drugs] neither improve school achievement nor reduce behavior problems. The drugs can also have serious side effects, including stunting growth.”

In his piece, Sroufe, who admittedly has been treating “troubled” children for more than 40 years, expresses doubt that ADHD even exists and requires drug treatment. The “father” of ADHD, Leon Eisenberg, actually admitted to this on his death bed as well.

“To date, no study has found any long-term benefit of attention-deficit medication on academic performance, peer relationships or behavior problems, the very things we would most want to improve,” added Sroufe. “Putting children on drugs does nothing to change the conditions that derail their development in the first place.”

Sources:

http://www.sciencedirect.com

http://www.dailynebraskan.com

http://www.cchrint.org

http://higherperspective.com

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.naturalnews.com