“Terrorists in Gaza and beyond are busy grooming the next generation of suicide bombers.” From Erick Stakelbeck and Michal Deskalo in FrontPage (thanks to Son of Infidel):
Thanks both to its much-maligned security barrier and its assassination of several Palestinian terrorist leaders, Israel has seen a dramatic decrease in suicide bombings over the past several months.
This fact””as well as the rapidly diminishing role of terror master Yasser Arafat in everyday Palestinian affairs””makes recent talk that the Intifada has finally ended after almost four years of bloodshed seem almost plausible.
But amidst these hopes, terrorist groups in Gaza and the West Bank are busy grooming the next generation of suicide bombers.
Last month, the student movement of Hamas, Al-Kutla al-Islamiyya, debuted a new Arabic-language website””www.alkotla.net””designed to encourage Palestinian teenagers to join the group and carry out suicide operations against Israel.
In addition to a section honoring past Al-Kutla suicide bombers (whose attacks have left 53 Israelis dead and over 300 injured) the site features photos of Palestinian high school students who earned academic honors this year, calling them, “the group which will lead the Palestinian nation to victory and liberation.”
According to the website, in early July, Hamas organized several large festivals in Gaza honoring over 2000 recent high school graduates. The students were presented with certificates of achievement and told to avoid “the Western lands of the infidels” while pursuing their college degrees.
Hamas has long courted top Palestinian high schoolers in order to groom them for future leadership positions within the organization. But these Hamas recruitment drives aren’t just limited to the secondary school level. Even preschoolers are sucked into the group’s culture of death.
For example, another popular Hamas website, www.al-fateh.net, features snapshots of Palestinian pre-teens and toddlers dressed in Hamas military regalia and holding automatic weapons.
Along with bedtime stories, games, riddles and coloring activities, the site showcases a Hamas “Featured Martyr.” The most recent honoree is Mahmoud Salem, the 18-year-old responsible for a suicide bombing at the Israeli port of Ashdod in March that killed 10 people.
Salem’s picture is accompanied by the text of his suicide note, which implores Palestinians “to continue their path to jihad and martyrdom.” …
This widespread indoctrination of young Muslims calls to mind an Arabic saying, Al-ilm fi al-sghirar kanaqshi fi al-hajar. Translated into English, it means, “An education in one’s youth is like engraving into a stone.”
Nations that are battling the forces of radical Islam around the globe can only hope that isn’t the case.