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Published on: 1/24/2006
Last Visited: 1/28/2006
Kay is a Professor at City University, London.Last December, I was on a trip to England to conduct research on a book I'm writing on early colonial New England, and we arranged to meet for lunch at a café in the British Library.Months earlier I had written an article where I quoted Kay as saying, "Israel portrays the children of Palestine as terrorists, faceless stone throwers, but due to Israeli policies, it's highly complex matrix of control, the health, education and overall well-being of the 1.8 million children of Palestine are at severe risk." I suspect she was using statistics that were derived several years earlier when the book was first developed.
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During lunch, Adah Kay and I spoke of her Jewish-Zionist upbringing and of her father who was at one time promoted for a leadership position in Israel, which he declined.We also spoke of anti-Semitism and how Israel's cruelty and oppression is provoking the reaction they most dread.Adah and her husband volunteer as much time as they are able to Palestine, as do several of their other friends within the London Jewish community.Kay co-authored "Stolen Youth," with Catherine Cook and Adam Hanieh, former staff and volunteers with Defense for Children International/Palestine Section.
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Since the publication of "Stolen Youth," Kay has given talks where she speaks of the particularly harsh punishment handed out to Palestinian children in violation of Article 3, the Rights of Children."Through law, politics and economic restrictions Israel governs Palestine with thousands of military orders controlling every aspect of their lives, down to what plants are allowed to be grown," according to Kay.The principles espoused in Article 3 first appeared in international law in 1924 as the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, and were later adopted by the General Assembly on 20 November 1959 and recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1989.Article 3 states that "the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth."The article also acknowledges that "the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community.""The use of prison is central to the occupation," Kay said.Underscoring that reality is the fact that Israel has detained more than 600,000 Palestinians from the time when the occupation began in 1967.Since 2000 over three thousand children have been arrested and imprisoned.Under Israeli jurisdiction, Palestinian children have no right to a lawyer nor are they permitted to know what the charges are."Children of 16 and 17 are treated by the military as adults, contrary to international law," Professor Kay explained. "Palestinian children once arrested are subject to torture including severe beatings, exposure to extreme temperatures and forced into extreme positions.They are blindfolded, shackled and put into detention centers in military camps or in settlement outposts where the Israelis force them into signing confessions and attempt to recruit them as collaborators.They are almost always sent on to prison."Sounds like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo!According to Kay, once incarcerated, children have no access to formal education which historically has been highly valued in Palestine.
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Adah Kay writes and speaks of children and teachers who are stopped at checkpoints and of the mounds of dirt that block roadways."They are gassed, shot at and injured going to and from school," she explains.
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Palestinians lack access to safe water and must live with open sewers," Kay has documented. The over-all health of Palestinian children is also deteriorating with death, injury and disability on the rise.Though previously a middle class society, poverty has significantly increased along with severe malnutrition, she states.
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However, social opportunities are rare for these children and their vision for a future is bleak, Kay maintains.
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Before we parted, Adah asked me as a Jew speaking to a Christian involved in the issue of Palestine how I kept from becoming anti-Semitic.
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