Only in Islam

Five-year old boys in the U.S. can be found riding their bikes, playing with Legos and action figures, participating in sports, and an assorted variety of activities.

Sadly, that is not the case in Gaza.  Little boys are being trained to be terrorists.  Something is dreadfully wrong with a religion which trains its young children for jihad.

Read from Israel Matzav:

The children of Gaza prepare for peace

[...]

The 'Palestinians' of Islamic Jihad in Gaza are learning very different things than my 8-year old is learning. Here's one picture:

And here's another:

And I almost forgot to mention: These 'Palestinian' feigalehs are in Kindergarten.

The children were dressed up in uniforms of Jihad's armed-wing, the al-Quds Brigades, and each of them received a toy rifle. Some of them held up photos of Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shaqaqi.

The event was attended by the children's relatives, some of whom belong to Islamic Jihad and other armed Palestinian factions. [Other factions? Is that like the Gerrer's sending to the Vizhnitz cheder l'havdil? (With apologies to those who don't get the question - it was too good a line not to include) CiJ].

During the ceremony the children were asked to stand next to mock coffins draped with flags of the various armed factions. The flags bore the images of "shahids (martyrs)."

One child, Hamza, said "When I grow up I'll join Islamic Jihad and the al-Quds Brigades. I'll fight the Zionist enemy and fire missiles at it until I die as a shahid and join my father in heaven.

"I love the resistance and the martyrs and Palestine, and I want to blow myself up on Zionists and kill them on a bus in a suicide bombing," he said.

During the ceremony the children "demonstrated" how Israel treats Palestinian prisoners. In the display, handcuffed children depicting inmates were placed in cages, with an "Israeli guard" standing nearby.

Another child depicting an Israeli prison guard placed the head of a "Palestinian prisoner" in a bucket of water to demonstrate how Palestinian prisoners are "tortured" in Israel.

Many more pictures of (apparently the same) graduation from Challah Hu Akhbar (who actually had this story yesterday) here.

In the meantime, an op-ed in Haaretz complains about the 'militarism' in Israeli kindergartens.

It begins in kindergarten, when one day the parents are asked to prepare a package of goodies and to help to draw greetings for the soldiers of the Duvdevan elite undercover unit who have adopted the kindergarten.

Miraculously, even if it was done without awareness, the request/order came during the weeks of Passover and Holocaust Remembrance Day, of Memorial Day and Independence Day, a period full of days of majesty, which for the children ended up in a mixture of Pharoah, Hitler, fireworks and "the people who died for the country because of the Arabs who wanted to expel the Jews," as my four-year-old daughter once told me.

The militarism in Israeli society is reflected not only among the gang of Sayeret Matkal elite commando graduates that dominates the country, but also on the everyday level, ostensibly banal and unthreatening, like the adoption of kindergartens by army units, or a brief holiday visit to Israel Defense Forces bases. And if there's nothing wrong with such an early start to preparing the children for their next role, the one that will begin at the age of 18, clearly the school system has to mobilize for the purpose.

Sorry, but this isn't militarism, it's patriotism, and there is nothing wrong with a country teaching even its young to appreciate those who serve it. Even Kindergarteners. That's a lot different than teaching 5 and 6-year olds to be 'martyrs' and to kill their enemies. Too bad Haaretz and its unquestioning readers cannot tell the difference.