Children, in the purest sense, are innocents. Children come first. But on the West Bank or Gaza, children come first in a different way. Try to compute the victims of this latest uprising, this supposed war, and most of the 130 or so dead already are Palestinians - and, overwhelmingly, most of them are kids, teenage lads well short of their legal majority. Thus mothers sob and fathers choke before our eyes.
Schoolteachers talk sadly about empty desks.
Oh Arabs, pay attention - the Palestinians are getting killed. And here is the damnable thing. None of this is an accident, a happenstance, a contrivance of fate. The children are first in the firing line by design. They have become cannon and media fodder.