It’s a lie perpetuated locally by the Palestinian education system and official Palestinian Authority television, as well as abroad by the mainstream international media.

And yet, time and again, we see Palestinian Arab children engaging Israeli soldiers in ways that would suggest these kids aren’t frightened of our troops. They’ll rarely, if ever, admit as much. The aforementioned narrative of Israeli soldiers as child-killers is too useful to the Palestinian cause. But the reality on the ground is quite different.

Otherwise, how can one explain Palestinian children slapping Israeli soldiers in the face, or hurling stones at approaching armored vehicles? Despite all the hate-filled incitement, children of that age want to live. They have not yet reached the age of fatalism. They do these things without fear because they know that under normal circumstances, the Israeli soldiers won’t harm them.

Or consider an incident in Hebron earlier this year when a Palestinian...

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