It’s astonishing—or perhaps not—how often the words “youths” and “children” are used when describing Palestinian casualties, civilian or otherwise. A 19-year-old Palestinian injured in battle with the IDF is often called a “youth,” even if the 19-year-old was actually working with the terrorists. Or was one.
Palestinian teenagers are always at least identified as teenagers, and often as “children.” Like in the headline and lede to the latest AP story about the IDF battles in Gaza yesterday:
Gaza fighting kills 20 Palestinians, including 5 children
Israel struck hard against targets in Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 20 Palestinians in a day of heavy fighting that also saw three Israeli soldiers killed in a Hamas ambush.Several civilians were among the dead – including five children and a Reuters cameraman killed while covering the conflict, according to Palestinian officials.
And how old are the children?
In the day’s deadliest incident, an Israeli helicopter fired four missiles at targets near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, witnesses said. At least 12 Palestinians, including five children ages 12-15, were killed, said Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Let’s compare this to the massacre of Israeli children at Mercaz Harav, the yeshiva that a Palestinian terrorist walked into and deliberately gunned down 7 teenagers and one young man. How did AP report their ages?
Gunman Kills 8 At Jerusalem Seminary
A gunman entered the library of a rabbinical seminary and opened fire on a crowded nighttime study session Thursday, killing eight people and wounding nine before he was slain, police and rescue workers said.
They didn’t. AP doesn’t bother with the ages of the victims in the early stories. You don’t get the age until the funeral stories the next day:
Thousands of Israelis gathered outside a bullet-scarred Jerusalem rabbinical seminary on Friday to mourn eight students killed by a suspected Palestinian gunman, while an Israeli official said the country would not suspend peace talks.
A bearded rabbi recited Hebrew psalms line by line, the crowd repeating after him, in memory of the dead, one of whom was 26 and the rest between ages 15 and 19. People packed nearby balconies to observe the ceremony, after which the bodies were to be taken for burial.
So, a 15-year-old Palestinian is a child. But a 15-year-old Israeli? No. Not a child. A “student” at best.
Almost no non-Israeli media outlet ever names the victims of Palestinian terror. They rarely mention the age of the victims, even when they’re children. There is a constant dehumanization of the Israeli victims of Arab terror, and it has been so for decades.
What time is it, folks? That’s right. It’s Israeli Double Standard Time. Palestinian “youths” morph into “children,” while Israeli “children” morph into—something else. Something less sympathetic. Because that simply doesn’t fit the media narrative anymore.