JERUSALEM (November 8) - United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner Mary Robinson is to begin a week-long visit to the area today, with Foreign Ministry officials saying they will present a strong case to her about the Palestinian's "cynical" use of children as human shields in the recent riots.
Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker said the use of children in the violence constitutes no less than a "war crime," and cites various international conventions to back up his position. Various international treaties, Baker says, set the age of 15 as minimum age for a child to participate in hostilities, whether directly - through combat - or through other means.
According to Baker, the Palestinians are well aware of the IDF's firing procedures: tear gas and water hoses against rock throwers, rubber bullets against firebomb throwers, and live fire against gunmen.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak explained that the Palestinians are placing the stonethrowers in the front lines, followed by the fire-bomb hurlers and then the snipers. In some cases, he said, some of the Palestinian youths killed during the clashes have actually been shot from behind.
The use of children as combatants was spelled out last week in a letter Israeli Ambassador to the UN Yehuda Lancry wrote to the executive director of UNICEF, asking the children's rights advocate to pressure the Palestinians to keep their children out of areas of potential conflict.
"Chairman Yasser Arafat, who is ruthlessly encouraging the involvement of children in the violence, calls them 'the Generals of the rocks.' He would have the world believe that Israel, with its guns and helicopters, is waging a war against 10-year-olds with small stones," Lancry wrote. "In truth, however, the children... are used as human shields for the gunmen, bomb throwers, and lynch mobs whose faces have been totally obscured and invisible to the media."
The message seems to be getting through, at least at a declarative level.
Yesterday, PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said, "There has been an overwhelming agreement among Palestinian factions to carry out a public-awareness campaign to prevent those children under 16 years old from taking part in these demonstrations." According to Abed Rabbo, the children are not knowingly being used as cannon fodder, but rather take part in the protests as a genuine expression of pain and grievance.
The problem, Baker says, is that children at that age are incapable of making the kind of logical decisions regarding whether to place themselves in life-threatening situations, and are in need of parental guidance and authority to protect them.
Regarding Robinson's visit, Mordechai Yedid, deputy director-general of the Foreign Ministry's UN and International Organizations division, said Israel will receive her as the head of the UN's Commission on Human Rights, but not as part of a human rights inquiry commission the body set up last month after adopting a one-sided resolution condemning Israel for "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel, said Yedid, has informed Robinson that it will not cooperate with the body, or in any way assist it in implementing the resolution.
During her two-day visit, Robinson will meet with Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, and Supreme Court President Aharon Barak. A meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Barak is still in the works.
She is scheduled to go to the Palestinian Authority on Friday, where she is slated to meet Arafat and will surely be flooded with numerous allegations of Israeli human rights violations.
Robinson is a former president of Ireland and is seen as a possible candidate in the race to succeed Kofi Annan when his term as UN secretary-general expires in two years.