We, the signatories below, decry and denounce the cynical and systemic abuse of Palestinian children by the adults who have turned them into soldiers in their war against the state of Israel. We say enough of this child abuse.

We mourn that Palestinian children have for decades been groomed to perform as warriors by their elders: sent out to throw rocks at Israeli soldiers in the first Intifada, recruited as suicide bombers in the second Intifada, and forced to dig tunnels from Gaza into Israel today. Hamas officials admit that 160 children died recently doing the grisly work.

Some estimates suggest that over 20% of Palestinian children are malnourished today, this in spite of untold billions of dollars given to Palestinian leaders since 1948, a number that grew substantially after the Oslo Accords. We know that Hamas diverts millions of dollars of Gaza’s aid every year to building tunnels and rockets, and the PA spends millions on salaries for imprisoned terrorists and pensions for the families of suicide bombers.

As we welcome back our own children from the safety of our summer camps, we are haunted by images of Palestinian children conscripted to Hamas and Islamic Jihad camps where they learn to shoot Kalashnikov rifles and are encouraged to “butcher the Jews.”

We understand that religious fanatics are not the only abusers of Palestinian children, that the quasi-secular Palestinian Authority (PA) operates an education system designed to inculcate in them a xenophobic hatred for the Jewish “Other.” Yasser Arafat boasted in 2002 that dead children are “the greatest message to the world,” and in 2020, Fatah party leader Jibril Rajoub declared, “We are prepared to sacrifice our children.”

We remember how the Palestinian cultural leaders used children’s entertainment to instill hatred, like the infamous Tomorrow’s Pioneers program with Farfour, the Jew-hating version of Mickey Mouse. We recoiled in horror as the curriculum of hatred became more elaborate throughout the 21st century, and we shuddered as text books, comic books, cartoons, and music videos were used to twist young minds.

We know too that this barbaric indoctrination continues today, even in the United Nations schools which Hamas uses to store weapons. Therefore, we unequivocally condemn every educator who participates in the brainwashing of Palestinian children, be they Hamas teachers, Fatah teachers, or U.N. teachers. As a song from another era put it: “Hey teachers, leave them kids alone!”

Finally, we condemn militant anti-Zionists in the West who exploit Palestinian children to demonize the Jewish state. Among the worst such offenders is the New York Times which on May 26, used images of dead Palestinian children to sell papers, even though many of those kids were killed by some of the 680 errant Hamas rockets that fell into Gaza.

And so we stand in solidarity with all Palestinian children as they struggle to live normal lives guided by some of the most atrocious role models on Earth. We affirm their right to reject the fantasy forced upon them of a “Palestine from the river to the sea.”