Gaza's pain: 'We're bored of this life and want to die'

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"HE WAS a small man in a small hospital ward about to hear words that no father ever should. Outside the window, a short drive away, Israeli battle tanks and snipers fought Palestinian gunmen in Beit Hanoun during the fiercest street fights in Gaza for months.

Muhammad Zakout’s 14- year-old son, Alaa, leaked blood on to a hospital pillow as his family gathered around the bed, incredulous that after repeated warnings to stay out of trouble he had been shot while throwing stones at Israeli tanks.

After muttered lies and evasions — to smirks from teenage accomplices — the truth was even more unwelcome.

“I’ll tell you why,” he finally mumbled. “We are just bored of this life and we want to die.”

Silence.

“He doesn’t listen to me,” lamented Mr Zakout, 44, a labourer from the Jabalya refugee camp who vainly hopes that his eldest son’s shoulder wound will jolt sense into him."

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[msmcghee]

1. That seems like a reasonable response . .

. . for someone who realizes that he and his family would be killed if they were to suggest in public that their leaders should seek peace rather than violent confrontation with Israel. His friends would no-doubt quickly disown him lest they share the same fate.

Depression is caused when somone realizes that they are caught in a cycle of hopeless choices. How sad.

[Actionmac]

2. seek peace....

how about leave the next generation, Israelis and Palestinian, alone stop making the fight the fathers war. that is what perpetuates the continued hatred.

[Tom Joad]

9. Israel rejects peace, and just wants pieces of the West Bank.

[Behind the Aegis]

11. Palestine rejects peace. They just want all of Israel.

[breakaleg]

3. The next generation of Palestinians aren't being taught good lessons

by growing up in this environment. They will be the next tragedy in this conflict.

[bemildred]

4. The next generation of Palestinians will be hard as rocks

and mean as a mongoose.

[pelsar]

5. and not so smart....palestenian brain drain...

http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/s/csm/20061024/wl_csm/oexodus

The catalyst, the pollster says, has been Palestinian disillusionment following Hamas's half-year in government. "What the Israelis were unable to do - try to push the Palestinian out of the country - the internal strife is achieving," he says.

Even more telling, adds Said, is that the percentage surges to 44 percent among Palestinians in their 20s and 30s. Among young men, it surges beyond 50 percent.
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Riad Malki, the director of Panorama, a Ramallah nonprofit that promotes democracy in the West Bank and Gaza, confesses that he is giving more thought to the idea of relocating. But the broader trend of an exodus by the middle class and young males stirs up fear that Palestinian society may be stripped of its next generation.

"We are going to lose the dynamo of the Palestinian state," he says. "If we lose them how will we set up the offices of Palestine?"


haartez has an article in the friday paper (should appear on sunday on the internet) explains how its the educated that is leaving.....

interesting note: they're blaming their own govt and not israel, seems unlike many here, they understand the PAs responsability.

[bemildred]

6. There will be nothing but violent nitwits left on both sides soon.

Just like Iraq.

[pelsar]

7. actually....

israel has educated idiotes.....we call many of them politicians (but thats just a side note...)

[bemildred]

8. You can make a kid go to school, but you can't make him learn. nt

[IntiRaymi]

10. All you see in other posts is an israeli abdication of responsibility

Their callousness always makes me shudder.