One of the things that Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, has publicly emphasized is the cruelty that he experienced during his childhood. In his early years while being indoctrinated to hate Israel and Jews generally he was also physically brutalized and abused. Since defecting to Israel in 1997 Mosab has for some time been advocating for the complete and utter destruction of Hamas and yet he continues to profess love for his father. This may seem paradoxical but it isn’t. Mosab is that rare individual who has been able to see through his parents, and in his case see all the way into the darkness of his father’s heart, and yet continues to love him. In most cases the love of a child for his or her parents is unshakable regardless of how he or she was treated when growing up. In addition to that offspring never stop seeking their parents praise and approval. This dynamic between parent and child has been playing out in the war between Israel and Hamas.
After he himself became a parent George Orwell wrote that it is not enough to love our children, we must love them intelligently.
With modern technology, it is easy for soldiers in the field as well as Hamas terrorists to communicate in real time with their parents. During the Hamas pogrom the most infamously iconic communication between a terrorist and his parents was that of the son who called home on October 7 to brag that he had just killed ten Israelis with his bare hands — presumably they were all defenseless, no armed Israeli soldiers. (READ MORE from Max Dublin: Throw That York Professor in Jail, Canada. Her Vandalism Was Anti-Semitic.)
Communications with their parents of young Israeli soldiers who are anticipating death have a starkly different tone. They express gratitude for all the good that their parents have done for them, for the goodness that has befallen them during their lives in the form of family, friendships and experiences, and gratefulness that they have been privileged to die in defense of the country which they love. That last sentiment can be found in missives from young Israeli soldiers going all the way back to the Israeli War of Independence.
It is said that children become terrorists because their fathers or brothers were killed by the IDF or other Israeli security forces. This is a cliché based on propaganda. It is the sort of half-truth that is always seductive to the politically naïve because of its emotional appeal and because it disregards the forest for the trees. Of course, there will be some children who become terrorists because their fathers were killed while committing acts of terror but that’s not the big picture . It is a commonplace that all children in both Gaza as well as Judea and Samaria, are indoctrinated at the earliest of ages to hate not only Israelis but all Jews and to become terrorists in order to kill them. It must be remembered that the Hamas terrorists number only in the thousands while their supporters and potential terrorists who wildly cheer them on not only in the Arab world but also in the West number in the millions. When Hamas sister terrorist organization ISIS was at its peak recruits flooded to join them from all over the world, including the west. Then again if terrorism is all about revenge why do they hate all Jews and not just Israelis? And why are Jewish students being harassed and intimidated on campuses all over North America?
Indoctrination is not the same as socialization. If they are to get on in the world all children need to be socialized as a part of their upbring. In some ways socialization is restraining. It is natural for parents to want to pass their culture and values on to their children. But ideally it is liberating. We want to teach our children what the world is like, how to get around in it and what they have to do to flourish. If this is done well our children may very well strike out in a different direction from our own.
Indoctrination is something entirely different. In her landmark book, Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt remarked that the first order of business for totalitarian regimes is to get their hands on the children. The purpose of indoctrination is to severely circumscribe the child’s scope for thinking and acting, effectively making him or her a tool to narrowly serve the elder’s purposes. In this sense indoctrinators, be they parents or teachers, sacrifice rather than liberate children. The indoctrinated become the useful idiots that Lenin bragged about. They become the modern version of Hitler Youth or Soviet era Young Pioneers. They are the ones joining pro-Hamas demonstrations all over the world.
Today, indoctrinating children to become terrorists is not the only radical form of weaponizing children. The most extreme form of indoctrination in the West is to encourage a child at an early impressionable age to become confused about his or her sexual identity and then to encourage that child to undergo sex-transitioning through drugs and surgery. Children such as Mosab Hassan Yousef who have been indoctrinated into a radical religious and political ideology, can ultimately reject it as he did. This might happen by a sudden epiphany or through the slower process of learning the realities of life. But the process of sex-transitioning is not merely of the heart and soul of the child but of his or her body. As such it is largely irreversible. (READ MORE: In Their Words: The Families of Hamas’ Victims)
Raising children to become terrorists or encouraging them to sexually transition by way of drugs and surgery are the cruelest forms of child abuse imaginable. In fact it would be more apt to call it a modern form of child sacrifice. Only at the cost of forsaking our humanity do we accept the notion that this is done out of love. It stems from idolatry, the worship of false gods, which is to say, delusions. After all, what is substantially the difference between the parent who encourages a child to become a terrorist versus one who encourages a child to undergo sexual transitioning? Good intentions do not excuse such poisonous parenting. A childhood fueled by hatred is not a happy one any more than one immersed in confusion and pain. And statistically both types of children are heading for early death. If the terrorist is lucky, he or she will manage to take one or more innocent civilians with him or her. There will be no such satisfaction or consolation for the sexually transitioned person.
After he himself became a parent George Orwell wrote that it is not enough to love our children, we must love them intelligently, which means that we must give forethought as well as we can to the consequences of the path upon which we set them when they are very young and impressionable and not only willing but eager to follow our guidance. In this respect neither ignorance nor good intentions is an acceptable excuse. The evidence is overwhelming where these paths lead to. And that is why the rest of humanity that eschews such baleful, poisonous child-rearing are entitled to ask the parents and educators who choose to encourage children to follow these paths, do you really love these children whose lives you are sacrificing or do you love yourselves and your delusions rather more?
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