We’re used to hearing about the incitement of Israeli children from Max Blumenthal, who says indoctrination begins in the “spring season” of holidays when kids are taught about the enemies who surround them. Well the American Jewish community is getting the message. The Forward has published a shocking piece called, “When Israelis Teach Their Kids to Hate” with the picture above of children in the settlement of Efrat celebrating Israeli independence day, and another one of a child holding a giant rifle (at that link).

Gideon Levy has also landed on the pictures. “When Hamas treats its children like this, Israeli parents tut-tut with disgust: Look at these beasts.”

Here’s another image from another site:

The Forward’s Michael Kaplan writes sardonically:

Little kids throw mock grenades and pretend to shoot big guns; a boy crawls militant-style as gun-wielding adults cheer him on; a girl wearing a pink dress carries a rocket launcher twice her size. These are some of the disturbing photos that flooded out of the West Bank earlier this week on Israel’s Independence Day, or what Palestinians call the Nakba (Catastrophe). I can imagine that despair and hopelessness probably rattled the Jewish community. How could there ever be peace when kids are trained to aspire toward violence and militancy?

Kaplan concludes:

And now, we have yet another confirmation that Israeli children also learn to glorify and aspire toward violence, and — surprise, surprise — no one really seems to care.

Yes but maybe they do. These are settler children now seen widely in the U.S. Jewish community. Not your grandfather’s Israel.

Speaking of the changing paradigm inside the American Jewish community, here is Peace Now’s latest letter, spotlighting Israeli extremism: