Fatah teaches 4-year-olds to handle AK-47s (ABC NEWS)

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For the KidsDespite New Peace Initiatives, Mideast Youth Are Old Hands at ConflictBy Leela Jacinto A Palestinian boy poses with an AK-47 assault rifle during a rally organized by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza Strip, February 25, 2002. (Suhaib Salem/Reuters) Feb. 28 - Diplomats and envoys may be jet-setting around the capitals of the Arab world discussing new initiatives to bring peace to the Middle East, but the kids in the region aren't kidding around these days. The images are alarming. In some volatile areas, like the impoverished refugee camp in Rafa, Gaza, images of young boys at demonstrations struggling to hold AK-47 rifles almost as large as they are continue to horrify the world. Kids as young as four were being taught how to handle weapons at a rally organized by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, in the Rafah camp earlier this week .In cities across Israel, teenagers groove to Hebrew rappers protesting what they say is a bad situation created by adults, while Palestinian kids have to routinely resist the urge to skip out of school to hurl stones at Israeli checkpoints in and out of the Palestinian territories. But even as "the adults" tentatively explore the new peace initiative by Saudi Arabia calling for a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories in return for normalization of relations with the Arab states, the kids in the Middle East know it's still a tough world they live in. But it's one in which they want to express themselves. "In many ways, the political positions of the kids represent - and are often perhaps more extreme - than those of the adults," says Gershon Baskin, co-director of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), a Jerusalem-based think-tank. "Both sides train their kids to use guns. We train our children to join the army and teach them to be fighters. And I'm not surprised that Palestinian kids are trained to use guns. It's reflective of two societies involved in a bloody conflict." In more than a decade since the IPCRI has been involved in education-for-peace initiatives, Baskin says he has noticed a perceptible change in the opinions of both Israeli and Palestinian high school children. As the current 17-month-old intifada has been raging across the region, Baskin says that unlike old times, he finds Palestinian children have a greater diversity of opinions on the political situation than the Israeli high school students his organization has worked with. "In the old days [before the latest intifada began], Palestinian kids tended to have a uniform stand while the Israeli groups had a lot more diversity of opinions," he says. "But these days, the Israelis come with much more crystallized positions - positions such as the Palestinians reject everything; Israel has offered enough." A New Offer From Saudi ArabiaThe offer currently in the cards though, comes from the other side of Arab-Israeli divide. In a peace initiative that is gathering fresh support, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah offered a land-for-peace formula. Palestinian boys pose with assault rifles during a rally against Israel and the U.S. organized by the Palestinian Public Resistance in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 25, 2002. (Charles Dharapak/AP Photo) During a recent interview with the New York Times, Abdullah, the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, offered to normalize relations with Israel in return for full withdrawal from Arab lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Although land-for-peace is not a new idea in Middle East diplomacy, the Saudi plan has created a stir, coming as it did from one of the most influential Arab nations - the oil-rich Arab ally of the United States - at the seemingly lowest point of the current intifada, when all hopes for peace appeared to have withered.In the hectic diplomacy of the past few days, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana met with Abdullah in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Wednesday to discuss the proposals. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Solana said the Saudi prince was determined to seek broad Arab support for the proposals at an Arab summit in Lebanon next month. Hectic DiplomacyAfter 17 months of bloodshed that has claimed more than 1,100 lives and has left most of the Palestinian-ruled areas looking like a moonscape of bulldozed roads, pockmarked buildings and street blockades, and with almost daily news of suicide bombings and women and children being shot dead, the international community has greeted the proposal with enthusiasm. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has said he "appreciated and supported completely" the Saudi peace efforts. Aides to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have said he is interested in discussing the proposals, and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has described the initiative as "important." But there is little detail available on the more contentious Middle East issues such as the Jewish settlements in the territories, the status of Jerusalem, and the Palestinian refugees' right of return. And most important from the Israeli point of view, the Saudi proposal has not yet been formally made."It is very difficult for us to conduct political negotiations over the pages of the New York Times," says Ido Aharoni, a spokesman for the Israeli government. "The Saudi proposal appears to be a step in the right direction, but here's the problem: there is no initiative. It's just a vague idea shared with journalists." Cautious OptimismNevertheless, many Palestinians working in the territories have expressed cautious optimism regarding the new initiatives."I think the plan provides a good dynamic for the Israelis to grab," says Mustafa Barghouthi, president of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, an independent human rights organization. "The issue of course is whether Israel wants it. And whether Sharon actually wants to make peace. After all, Sharon is not a man with a history of making peace." In the Israeli peace camp, a section of Israeli society that is gradually gaining ground, many peace activists say they are wary this time around. "The failure of peace initiatives is sometimes more destructive than what you would expect," says Amriam Goldblum, a professor at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and an activist at Peace Now, an organization founded by Israeli reservists. "It was the Mitchell Plan last year, and before that, it was something else. We've had 20 years of this." The Mitchell Plan was published last May by an international commission headed by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell. It called for several stages of confidence-building measures - including a settlement freeze - that were to build on preceding periods of calm, to be followed by the resumption of peace negotiations. `Occupation Corrupts Both'But the Saudi peace initiative does not appear to be changing much on Palestinian - or Israeli - streets. Even as diplomats made peace initiatives, Israeli troops launched a major assault on the Balata and Jenin refugee camps in the West Bank today. In the past few days, 12 pregnant Palestinian women have been prevented from reaching hospitals while in labor at Israeli checkpoints, four of whom lost their babies. And images of little boys bearing AK-47s - such as the ones emanating from Rafa - do not help build bridges."This is the kind of future they're promoting for the future generations of Palestinian people," says Aharoni. "If this is what you teach your young boys, how are they supposed to be educated? I think this is really a tragedy." But Goldblum insists that the photographs be seen in the light of the Israeli occupation. "Occupation is a violent act and the Palestinian reaction is a violent one as well," says Goldblum, even as he emphasizes that he favors non-violent struggle. "As a Palestinian friend said to me the other day, 'occupation corrupts both the occupier and the occupied.'"And the kids are not above it. In big cities across Israel, many kids buy the latest albums of an underground right-wing Hebrew rapper who calls himself 'Subliminal' who offers lyrics dripping with hate. And on the other side of the checkpoint, their Palestinian counterparts buy cassettes of jihadi songs. Art, they say, has always imitated life and for the children in the Middle East, it's not just academic discourse. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/mideast020228_peace.html