NGO Defense For Children Minimizes ‘Palestinian’ Youth Violence

As has now been clearly established by Israel, several Palestinian NGOs are working hand in glove with terrorist groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP (Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine). Among them is DCI-P, the Palestinian branch of the NGO Defense For Children, which Israel has linked to the PFLP. DCI-P has been found to minimize, distort, or hide reports of Palestinian youth violence, and has shown little interest in how Palestinian children are recruited and exploited by the terror groups. A report on the activities of DCI-P (Defense For Children International – Palestine) is here:

Over the past few weeks, Israel has again experienced a wave of “lone-wolf” attacks, largely committed by Palestinian teenagers against Israeli civilians and security personnel. The latest example: on December 8, 2021, a 14-year-old girl stabbed an Israeli woman in Jerusalem as she walked with her children.

Unfortunately, the role of Palestinian teens in terror attacks is not new. In recent years, Palestinian minors have repeatedly killed and maimed Israeli civilians and security forces through stabbings, as well as hurling stones and firebombs.

Story continues below advertisement

In other cases, they have been sent to participate in violent clashes with IDF forces. Some of these youths were even members of internationally-designated terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The terror groups use teenagers to attack Israelis for several reasons. First, they know that many Israelis going about their business will be less wary of young people and remain off-guard until it is too late. That was the case with the 14-year-old Palestinian girl who came right up to an Israeli woman in Jerusalem on Dec. 8, as she walked with her five small children, and stabbed her.

Second, the Israeli police are reluctant to use force when young Palestinians confront and taunt them. The whole scene is being filmed for propaganda purposes, showing the “bravery” of the Palestinian teenagers daring to face down Israeli police; many will remember the video posted on-line of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi, who was filmed slapping, kicking and shoving two Israeli soldiers; the soldiers did not retaliate. This film circulated among the Palestinians who celebrated it as demonstrating young Tamimi’s courage, when in fact it took no courage at all, given that the Israeli soldiers followed strict instructions to stoically hold back, for her to attack them – slapping, kicking, shoving – as she did.

Third, when a teenage terrorist is wounded or killed, this becomes grist for the Palestinian propaganda mill — “Israelis are child killers.” The terrorist attack itself is not mentioned, only the subsequent Israeli response, which is to try to halt, even if it requires “neutralizing,” the young would-be killer.

While this phenomenon both threatens the lives and violates the human rights of Israelis and Palestinians alike, the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that claim to promote and protect the rights of Palestinian children instead manipulate and distort these events for propaganda. Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P) – designated in October by Israel as a terror organization citing links to the PFLP – is particularly insidious in its approach to teen terrorists.

DCI-P regularly publishes reports on incidents in which Palestinian youths were arrested or killed during security operations by Israeli forces, while erasing, downplaying, and sometimes excusing attacks committed by Palestinian minors. In many instances, DCI-P intentionally ignored these youths’ documented affiliations with Palestinian terror groups.

DCI-P publishes news of Israeli arrests, or killings, of Palestinian teenagers who were involved in terrorist attacks, but minimizes, or often fails to report altogether, the nature of those attacks. An unwary reader might think that those wicked Israelis suddenly turned on those teenagers for no apparent reason. And to maintain the fiction that these attacks are spontaneous outbursts by young people responding to intolerable conditions, rather than premeditated attacks, the DCI-P is careful not to mention any connection the attackers may have to the Palestinian terror groups Hamas, PIJ, and the PFLP.

For example, in a November 2021 film produced by DCI-P on the clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli forces, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said, “… we are usually talking about… boys throwing stones at tanks of Israel. This is not a very serious crime… They should not be put in police custody. They should not be put in pre-trial detention… in principle, they should also not be convicted of such minor crimes… ” In this way, DCI-P reframes life-threatening attacks on Israelis as imaginary attacks against “tanks,” which have not been operationally deployed in the West Bank in nearly two decades.

Rocks, if thrown with sufficient force, can severely wound, or even kill. Apparently Manfred Novak thinks there should be no punishment for “boys [just] throwing stones at tanks of Israel.” There are two things wrong with his statement, and as a former UN Special Rapporteur, he should be more careful with his facts. First, the “rocks” that those he calls “boys” – they are often young men in their middle and late teens – are arrested for throwing at Israeli police and soldiers, can be quite lethal. If large enough, and thrown with sufficient force, they can kill. And most of these incidents also involve, though Manfred Novak fails to mention them, the throwing of Molotov cocktails, and bottles of acid, and even the occasional grenade, at Israeli soldiers who, during the vast majority of these incidents, are only trying to protect Israel’s security fence at the border with Gaza from being breached, or to prevent Jewish settlements in the West Bank from being attacked.

As the author scornfully notes, Novak’s mention of “boys throwing rocks at tanks” is absurd. The IDF for the past twenty years has not operationally deployed tanks in the West Bank. There are no such “rocks-against-tanks incidents” except in Novak’s hostile imagination.

DCI-P and its allies regularly cast doubts on incidents of Palestinian youth violence against Israelis even in the face of incontrovertible evidence, and completely erase recruitment by terror groups, even though their affiliation has been publicly announced by the organizations themselves. For example, DCI-P claimed that 16-year-old Hamas terrorist Omar Abu Asab, who was killed after he stabbed two Israeli border police officers on November 17, 2021, “allegedly stabbed two Israeli paramilitary border police officers… ” DCI-P’s account of the incident ignored Abu Asab’s affiliation with Hamas.

DCI-P casts doubt on attacks by Palestinian youth in the simplest of ways: it puts the word “allegedly” before any statement about the incident, even where the evidence was clear, as in the case of Omar Abu Asab, a member of Hamas, who stabbed two Israeli border police. It also failed to mention that Abu Asab was a member of Hamas, which would have shone quite a different light on the incident.

The Truth Must be Told

Your contribution supports independent journalism

Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more.

Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible.

Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too.

Please contribute here.

or

Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best.

Quick note: We cannot do this without your support. Fact. Our work is made possible by you and only you. We receive no grants, government handouts, or major funding. Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s essential NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America's survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Follow Pamela Geller on Gettr. I am there. click here.

Follow Pamela Geller on
Trump's social media platform, Truth Social. It's open and free.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spammy or unhelpful, click the - symbol under the comment to let us know. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

If you would like to join the conversation, but don't have an account, you can sign up for one right here.

If you are having problems leaving a comment, it's likely because you are using an ad blocker, something that break ads, of course, but also breaks the comments section of our site. If you are using an ad blocker, and would like to share your thoughts, please disable your ad blocker. We look forward to seeing your comments below.

Sponsored
Geller Report
Thanks for sharing!