They're like trading cards but.....

Young Palestinians wild for 'martyr' necklaces
Pokémon cards passé as traders covet militant memorabilia

By Sandro Contenta
MIDDLE EAST BUREAU

BALATA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank —
Fourteen-year-old Saleh Attiti has replaced his
once-precious Pokémon cards with a less
innocent craze that has swept up children in this
violence-torn camp.

On a plastic coffee table in his cinder-block
home, Saleh proudly displays part of his growing collection of necklaces with
pictures of "martyrs" of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

"I used to have plenty of Pokémons — my school bag was half full of them,"
Saleh said. "I threw them all away. They're not important now. The pictures of
martyrs are important. They're our idols."

It's difficult to find a child in this teeming camp of 20,000 people who isn't
wearing at least one necklace with a picture of a shahid, or "martyr" — mostly
militant gunmen killed or suicide bombers blown up during the 20-month-old
uprising.

The children use them the way they once used cards of Pokémon or sports
heroes. They spend their meagre allowances to collect and trade them,
constantly hunting for prized shahid pictures that excite like a vintage baseball
card.

For Palestinian teachers, the craze in "martyr" necklaces is the latest example
of children poised to become the next generation of fighters against Israeli
occupation. Growing up in a culture of violence fuelled by both sides in the
conflict, Palestinian children are adopting the uprising's militia fighters as role
models.

"These children are convinced that martyrdom is a holy thing, something
worthy of the ultimate respect," said Munir Jabal, head of a Balata teachers
association. "They worship these pictures. I think it will lead them in the future
to go out and do the same thing."

In Balata, a stronghold of the Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militia, the
most highly sought after necklaces have pictures of Mahmoud Attiti, Raed
Karmi, and Yasser Badawi, militia leaders assassinated by the Israeli army
during the conflict.

The most recent hot item is a pendant of Jihad Attiti, the 18-year-old who
became the camp's first suicide bomber two weeks ago by blowing himself up
and killing two Israelis — an 18-month-old baby and her grandmother — in a
Tel Aviv suburb.

"It works like this," says 12-year-old Assam Kandil, who boasts of having 30
necklaces. "If I have an extra one of Mahmoud Attiti, I will trade one for
Yasser Badawi."

Added Saleh, a nephew of bomber Attiti: "We love them and we want to be like
them."

The trend first appeared last November. A shopkeeper in the adjacent city of
Nablus, Assam Kanaza, was producing plaques of civilians and militants killed
in the fighting when a family asked him to produce a plastic medallion of their
son.

Kanaza, 29, said the work was noticed by other families who lost loved ones,
and new orders came in until the medallions snowballed into a popular
phenomenon. Kanaza said he's produced more than 5,000 of them, and another
6,000 plaques and key chains — all with the pictures of "martyrs."

The medallions are shipped to other parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank,
but the phenomenon is most evident in Balata and Nablus.

Kanaza's plastic medallions are the top end of the necklace craze and sell for
10 shekels a piece, about $3.30.

"Sometimes a child will say, `Don't you think that's too much,'" said Kanaza. "I
say, `If you bring me half that much I will give it to you.' He comes back in a
week with five shekels and he's very, very happy."

With Palestinian civilians or fighters killed on almost a daily basis, Kanaza's
business is booming. Other merchants have jumped on the craze with a
cheaper alternative to Kanaza's medallions. They mass-produce passport-size
photos of the militants and slip them into transparent pendants. Those sell for
just 65 cents.

At Balata, the craze is a by-product of a community that has seen some of the
worst fighting in the uprising.

Since last February, the camp has been completely invaded three times by
Israeli soldiers in search of militants and bomb-making workshops.

At the camps' school for boys, run by the United Nations' agency responsible
for Palestinian refugees, bullet holes riddle the inside of some classrooms and
parts of its façade.

The 1,700 students have missed half the school year because of
Israeli-imposed curfews or invasions. Many of the students know a relative or
friend killed in the uprising. Two of its students have been killed and six have
brothers who died in the fighting.

It's the kind of environment that has forced teachers to grudgingly allow
students to wear their "martyrs" necklaces in class. When a teacher recently
insisted a student remove his necklace during gym class, the boy's father
showed up the next day and "wanted to fight us," said the school's principal.

The principal, who asked not to be named, said teachers were forced into a
similar compromise about posters commemorating fighters and suicide
bombers, which used to fill classroom walls. The students agreed to take them
down in exchange for posting them on classroom bulletin boards.

"We tried to convince the students that there's just not enough places to put up
all the martyrs posters because it's a continuous phenomenon," he said. "The
Israeli occupation thinks it can break this new generation by showing its
power. They don't understand that the opposite is happening. They're breeding
hatred."

Jabal said the children have lost all fear of Israeli soldiers and already go
through dangerous lengths to imitate their militant models.

Recently, Jabal's 15 year-old son was shot in the leg by soldiers after setting
fire to an unoccupied tank.

"I opened my son's closet and found it full of martyrs posters and necklaces. I
said to him there's nothing wrong with being nationalistic and defending your
rights, but you're just too young," Jabal said. "I said, `Ultimately, you'll be
rewarded with your picture hanging from a necklace, and we will have lost a
son.'"

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