While an overwhelming majority of the Palestinian Arab public support deadly terrorist attacks against Israelis - a position enthusiastically advocated and encouraged by all major Palestinian factions - a growing minority of Palestinian commentators are voicing unease over the use of children as terrorists and the widespread glorification of death, as well as the tendency to target innocent Israeli civilians.
A recent analysis by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) shows that for the most part, such opposition comes from a concern over the impact of the prevalence of such brutal practices on Palestinian society, as well as the futility of such attacks, which have failed to force Israel to surrender, as opposed to sympathy for innocent Israeli victims. But the emergence of such voices does indicate an emerging opposition to the months-long, bloody wave of terror wages by Palestinian terrorists against Israelis, which has resulted in the deaths of more attackers than intended victims.
According to MEMRI:
Despite the atmosphere of incitement and accusations against Israel by the PA, several Palestinian intellectuals and journalist(s)... have criticized the attacks, and especially those carried out by children. They expressed outrage at the participation of teenagers, including very young ones, in stabbing attacks against Israelis, claiming that it was not the place of children, and that their childhood and lives must be protected. They accused the leadership of Palestinian organizations of "trading in the blood of children" and sending them to die by encouraging them to carry out such attacks and praising and glorifying those who do...
Some writers also urged the Palestinians to avoid harming Israeli civilians, for both moral and practical reasons. On the moral level, they claimed that Palestinians must preserve their humanity; on the practical level, they argued that harming civilians, especially at the present time, harms the Palestinian struggle and casues it to be associated with the global terrorism led by ISIS. Some even called to cease stabbing attacks due to their lack of effectiveness and their heavy cost in Palestinian lives, and called to find alternative modes of struggle.
In one article written by Fatah Revolutionary Council member Hafez Al-Barghouti in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida last November, the author railed against the tendency by many Palestinians to view their children as legitimate weapons or human shields.
"We must not bring our children into the cycle of violence... Even the Prophet Muhammad refused to bring children into battle... We should keep our children away from the demonstrations in the areas of conflict and clashes so they can experience their childhood. Even if it is a difficult [childhood], it is better than the childhood of the injured, the prisoner, or the martyr who is [completely] bereft of a childhood," he wrote.
In a second article written later that month, entitled "In Defense Of Childhood," Al-Barghouti urged readers to stop encouraging their children to take part in violence.
"Do not cheer [the stabbing children] and do not take pride [in them], since this has become a game of blood. Those who scream and roar, congratulating a child for pulling out a knife or a schoolgirl for taking up a pair of scissors, should see them as though they were their own children. Would they agree to throw their son into this furnace?"
Writing for a PA-controlled paper, journalist Mohammed Daraghmeh agreed, and noted the high ratio of attackers killed in comparison to their relatively low "success rate" in managing to murder Israelis.
"The youths of Palestine must not all rush to their deaths [en masse] in this fashion," he wrote. "The small number of soldiers killed by stabbing attacks cannot be compared to the large number of Palestinian youths who lay soaking in their own blood at the feet of armed and trained soldiers."
Al-Barghouti also lashed out against Palestinian leaders, who he accused of happily sending other people's children out to die as "martyrs" while not similarly offering to sacrifice their own.
"Some organizations and clans that are morally bankrupt go too far with their slogans, acting as though [every] child is a massive army," he fired. "They make statements, chant [slogans] and call to escalate this action, but in practice they [only] trade in the blood of others and place themselves as the patrons of our blood, while never spilling a single drop of their own."
Commentator Amid Dwaikat went further still: "Let those who cause children to reach this state show themselves," he challenged. "Let them show us their own children.
"Do not call to continue [attacks] while you sit [safely] in your offices. God knows what resort your children are vacationing in. Children are not robots that you activate by the push of a button and can shut off as you wish. The blood of these children is on your conscience."
Journalist Ihab Al-Jariri agreed: "Those who write theories on Facebook, behind a computer monitor, and support the idea of children carrying out stabbing attacks and encourage them to do so, should first do it themselves and only then ask the young ones to follow in their footsteps," he wrote.
In other instances, commentators echoed the sentiments of senior Fatah and PLO official Jibril Rajoub, who recently argued that while all attacks against Israeli civilians were morally justifiable, from a strategic standpoint they were unwise as the outside world would view Palestinian terrorist groups as no different to ISIS.
In an October 29 article in the PA-controlled Al-Ayyam paper - one month in to the current wave of terror - Mohammed Daraghmeh echoed Rajoub almost word-for-word.
"The world will not accept stabbing and vehicular attacks against civilians, just as it opposed suicide attacks. [If we perpetrate such acts] the world, which we are trying to enlist to our cause, will condemn us and distance itself from us. We will lose its [support] and, at the end of the road, we will find ourselves alone, just as [we found ourselves] at the end of the Al-Aqsa Intifada."
Al-Barghouti agreed, arguing that such attacks on Israeli civilians should be avoided because they give ammunition to critics.
"We have an obligation to keep our sons and daughters from following in the footsteps of the fanatics and carrying out useless attacks, since the enemies, in their media and diplomacy, associate these attacks with the terror attacks carried out by the terrorist organizations in Paris and elsewhere, in order to present us as inhuman...
"Today, after the Paris attacks, we must keep a low profile so as to avoid being associated with the crimes of ISIS and its ilk."
However, he implied that such attacks - and worse - could still be considered at a later date.
"The world is slumbering and will not soon awaken, and therefore we must learn our lesson and wait... The struggle must wait for the right circumstances, and for men [rather than boys]... We must not lose control, and must preserve the essence of the Palestinian cause..."