In character as well as intent, Israel's claims are best compared to those of General Westmoreland during the US war against Vietnam. The resort to an imagined victimisation at the hands of a fanatic, savage breed of untermensch to justify the slaughter of innocents has a long pedigree, and here too Zionism has been a diligent student of the ideology responsible for extinguishing millions of Jewish lives. Palestine - is a decidedly shorter volume. The extraordinary, almost suicidal courage displayed by so many of them, often when there are no television crews around to record their actions and injuries, does not mesh well with the suggested image of terrified youngsters prodded into martyrdom by pitiless mothers. In a population of which some two thirds is under the age of 18, the political awareness of the average Palestinian teenager tends to be at least as developed as that of the average adult in the industrialised world.
Reality is too stark for it to be otherwise, survival demands it.
Similar factors were at work a decade ago in South Africa, where recognition of the role and sacrifices of South African youth formed the basis for Nelson Mandela's unsuccessful proposal to lower the voting age by several years. The comparison with South Africa is interesting in other respects as well. Because Apartheid was generally recognised as a vile system whose destruction was a worthy project, the legitimacy of mass uprisings against minority rule was rarely questioned, and the leading role played in the struggle by schoolchildren, such as in Soweto, was considered an inevitable reaction to unbearable oppression by conscious actors and applauded for its heroism. As formalised in Oslo and Camp David, Israeli apartheid by contrast enjoys significant support in Europe and particularly America, and more importantly is considered beneficial and uplifting for the Palestinians. When faced with popular resistance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, therefore, the standard colonialist fare about brainless natives, pathetically incapable of recognising their real interests, terrorised and manipulated into a violent frenzy by an evil chief, and docilely sacrificing their own children to his insatiable lust for blood and power, strikes a familiar chord in societies with a rich tradition of such thinking.