I am thinking that there may be a specific lesson Israeli parents need to learn from what has happened in the UK since September 7. In the city of Leeds, where three of the terrorists who attacked the London transport system were born and grew up, most of the Muslim community are saying "we didn't know, we never imagined" ordinary boys could go wrong so badly. "I can guarantee you if you go to all the bombers, they probably had upstanding parents who had no idea what they were up to," said Rizwan Haq, 34, the manager of a small grocery store down the block from the purported bomb factory in a small apartment. (Quoted in Washington Post 15/07/2005)
Children are impressionable. They lack the depth of experience that enables a person to understand complex issues, and they tend to take statements, especially those by their parents and community leaders, as given truths. It's not hard to see how young boys growing up in Leeds, exposed to a constant stream of biased, politicised and distorted information from their elders, will arrive at the untenable position that led these to commit their horrible action.
So where does this lead us to in Israel. Parents who openly disdain the democratic process of the country, who present their opinions about a highly complex issue like disengagement as a given truth, who encourage and reward actions that would otherwise be, if not punishable, at least subject to reprimand, are laying down the foundations of consequences like Leeds. Standing out on the street corner handing out orange ribbons may seem cute, but the message being passed on with the approval has frightening implications, and parents owe it to their children to be able to discern the border between disapproval of, and rejection of, authority, because their kids can't. Saying that impeding the progress of the disengagement is a mitzvah may sound like a rational statment to you, but to your children, that takes on a completely different meaning. Can you be sure just how far your child will want to go in performance of a mitzvah? Are you going to say "we didn't know, we never imagined", when it's too late?
