Sharon to bring booklet of young terror victims to Bush

When Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah met US President George W. Bush last week, he wanted to show Bush pictures of "charred and maimed Palestinian children," according to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is expected to do something somewhat similar when he meets Bush on Monday.

Sharon is taking to Washington a color booklet produced by the Education Ministry that tells the story of 69 infants, children, and teenagers killed during the last 19 months of violence. Another 600 children have been wounded. These numbers do not include soldiers.

The difference between the Saudi pictures and the stories in the booklet is addressed in the booklet itself.

During the IDF's actions, the booklet reads, "civilians were inadvertently hurt at times, because they happened to be in or near areas of combat. In such cases, Israel has apologized and expressed its deep sorrow for the loss of innocent lives.

"Never, however, have civilians -- men, women, or children -- been the deliberate target of these actions. Never were civilians harmed as part of an IDF military goal."

This, the pamphlet says, cannot be said of the Palestinians.

Telling the story of the children killed, from 5-month-old Yehuda Shoham to 19-year-old Yossi Elezra, the booklet reads, "These deaths were not accidental; they were not the collateral damage of battle; they were not children caught in the crossfire.

"No, these children were deliberately targeted by the terrorists, who are cynically exploiting Israel's sensitivity to the lives of children, and Judaism's view of the sanctity of human life, to extract concessions."

"It's important to explain to the world what is going on here," Education Minister Limor Livnat told Israel Radio Thursday. "We are teaching our children to love and pray and hope for peace. We want them to be tolerant of others and to live together with everyone in peace. They [the Palestinian Authority] are teaching their children to hate, kill, and murder.

"There is a great difference between the Israeli and the Palestinian education agenda," she said.

"Instead of worrying about educating students, I have been attending funerals of pupils, comforting parents and friends of dead children, and visiting wounded children in the hospital." Yehiel Leiter, Livnat's chief-of-staff who is responsible for the booklet, said it was originally planned for a UNESCO meeting later this month, but production was sped up so Sharon would have the material for his trip.

Leiter said the fact that 69 children have been deliberately killed by terrorists is largely an untold story.

The idea for the booklet was hatched when the country's ambassador to UNESCO complained about a lack of material to present the organization to counter Palestinian propaganda.

Although producing this type of information material generally falls within the purview of the Foreign Ministry, Leiter said the Education Ministry took on this particular project -- through its Information Center -- because it has had to deal with the fallout from a large number of students who have either been killed or wounded, or who have relatives or friends who have been the victims of terror attacks.