Eye on the Middle East May/Jun 2010
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward (Ps. 127:3).
This message from God’s Word is worlds away from the message of a Palestinian mother who recently received word of her son’s death in an Israeli air strike. The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has reported that the woman had this to say:
We had always hoped for his [my son’s] Martyrdom (Shahada), knowing he wanted to die as a Martyr (Shahid). Every time he went out, we would say to him, “May Allah be with you.” We knew that he wanted to die as a Martyr. Praise to Allah, he sought Martyrdom, and he achieved it. My message to every mother is to sacrifice her child for Palestine.
Her unbelievable words chill the hearts of everyone who loves children as commended in the Scriptures. In the world of radical Islam, however, her message is perfectly acceptable—even highly honored.
The Palestinian Media Watch has documented her ideas of life and death as the result of what has been taught for years in the Palestinian Authority through Hamas-originated television, school text-books, music videos, and other sources of public information. The idea is that death is of higher value than life and that martyrdom leads to a wedding between the martyr and the virgins of Paradise.
Eighth graders in Palestinian schools learn from their textbooks that “death is not bitter in the mouth of the believers. These drops of blood that gush from your bodies will be transformed tomorrow into blazing red meteors that will fall down upon the heads of your enemies.”
In January PMW reported that a Hamas TV cleric described what he claims are six rewards in Paradise granted to martyrs:
- The shahid’s sins are forgiven.
- He sees his place in Paradise and lives a full life of joy with Allah.
- He is protected from “the Great Shock” on Judgment Day.
- He is crowned with a crown of honor.
- He marries 72 dark-eyed virgins.
- He will be able to intervene on behalf of 70 of his family members on Judgment Day, thereby ensuring them the reward of Afterlife.
Unfortunately, the mother’s distress-ing message proves how successful this theology has become. Another proof is the rash of Islamic suicide missions in Israel, the Middle East, Europe, America, Asia, and Africa. Islamic theological propaganda has convinced thousands to become terrorists, and they have killed thousands and crippled thousands more.
War stories of terrorist Islamist fighters callously using children as human shields are well documented. These innocent children were thrust into harm’s way by unscrupulous people who not only sought their own personal protection, but also the political fodder of blaming their enemies when the children were killed or injured. Such action, coupled with indoctrinating young hearts and minds to desire death, represents perhaps the greatest example of collective child abuse on the planet.
And to do all these things in the name of their god is an abuse beyond comprehension. This deluded mother is to be pitied. She is a victim of cruel and inhuman manipulation that beggars belief. One would wonder what a mother’s heart actually says to her and the hundreds of other women falling prey to such unnatural reasoning.
Children are “a heritage from the Lᴏʀᴅ”; and that fact is not altered by skin tone, nationality, religion, or social and political engineering. The ultimate issue the PMW report raises concerns the matter of responsibility. And for Christians, it means responsibility to pray compassionately for the mothers and children being so cruelly abused.
