Occupation? What occupation?

Remember The Palestinians Charles Reese
http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20020503/index.php

Knowing how much Americans are worried about the loss of innocent life in Palestine, I thought I'd summarize the number of Palestinians killed in the past 17 months.

This number does not include all those killed in Israel's most recent military invasion of the West Bank. They are still finding bodies in the rubble. This number represents only those killed through March 9, 2002.

The toll of Palestinian children 15 and younger is 151. That's a lot of Little League teams. Many of these children were shot through the head by Israeli snipers who, 200 yards away in armored vests and helmets, apparently feared a rock thrown by a 12-year-old that landed many yards short. I can easily imagine killing people. After all, I was in the Army. I cannot imagine lining up a child's head in the scope of my rifle and squeezing the trigger.


According to the British Broadcasting Corporation in a recent story, Israel has the following assets: 134,000 army troops, 32,000 air force, 7,000 navy and 8,000 border police. The reserves are 400,000 for the army, 20,000 for the air force and 5,000 for the navy. In addition, Israel has 440 combat aircraft, 3,900 main battle tanks, 130 helicopters, 9,600 artillery tubes and 100 or more nuclear bombs.

Since the Palestinians have no army, no air force, no navy, no aircraft, no tanks, no helicopters and no nukes, one has to wonder indeed how these defenseless civilians can threaten Israel's existence. Gosh, you don't suppose Israeli and American politicians are lying, do you? Perish the thought.

I guess the Israeli army snipers must have been ordered to shoot all those children, for Palestinian children must be the toughest kids in the universe. I never heard of any other group of children able to frighten a whole nation like that.

That's funny, too, because all of the pictures I've seen of Palestinian children - dead, dying, bleeding or paralyzed - show kids who look like American children their age.