Gareth Smith makes a valid point in his letter (June 8) stating that Israel has signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Israel willingly signed and ratified because she believes that ALL children have the right to good lives.
Hamas and the PA on the other hand, use children as weapons of war and this is well known, to the extent that children from as young as five, are taught to despise Jews, as part of their actual school syllabus. They are also physically taught how to kill Jews from their pre-teens, and the importance of being a martyr.
Yes Gareth, I also think it is an incredibly worthwhile project to protect the innocent beautiful Palestinian children from harm, and this should start by stopping their complete and utter brainwashing by Hamas and the PA, so that as the future leaders of a Palestinian state, they can consider peace with Israel knowing the actual historical facts, rather than the absolute lies that are shoved down their throats.
Whilst it is a good idea, even you know that bulletproof vests sent for Palestinian children would be stolen by Hamas, as the last thing they want is a reduction in children’s deaths since, in their evil minds, nothing makes the news more than dead children. They not only never protect their people’s children from violence, their policy is to launch their many thousands of deadly missiles into Israeli civilian areas, from active kindergartens and schools, hoping that Israel will fire back. This is what causes the tragic deaths of children, not Israel defending itself from a bloodthirsty and ruthless enemy.
The children are taught that absolutely everything wrong in their lives is the fault of Israel, and not of the heinously violent, and incredibly incompetent and corrupt leaders of Hamas and the PA. Hamas and PA leaders are literally the highest paid leaders in the world, as year after year, they divert billions of dollars donated by the international community for the Palestinian people, into their own private bank accounts letting their people go without. The Palestinian people know this, but every single time they protest, they are murdered or given long prison sentences, keeping the population ‘in their place’. What do you have to say about that?
2022 has seen a spate of unprovoked deadly terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, resulting in many Israeli civilians being murdered in cold blood, but almost none of these have been reported by Australian media outlets, as they don’t see the murder of Jews as newsworthy, yet so often present countless unsubstantiated reports given word-for-word by the Hamas terror organisation without fact checking.
As I have always said, Gareth Smith, peace is the only answer, and always has been.
Danny Wakil, Billinudgel
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
