Skeik says it's OK to kill kids in battle

And I don't think I disagree. Here are some excerpts from the article in the Australian:

Sheik Shady Suleiman, a youth leader at Lakemba Mosque in Sydney's southeast, told his students in a one-hour Arabic and English lecture that it would be "self defence" to kill children who were attacking them in battle.

Muslim leaders yesterday attacked the 29-year-old cleric, who has a substantial following in Sydney, and accused him of delivering a message contrary to that of Prophet Mohammed who said children should not be killed in war. Prominent Sydney-based imam Khalil Shami said Sheik Shady's message was "dangerous" because it was open to being misconstrued by young Muslims.

...

He said the lecture was delivered to 60 young men who were advanced in Islamic studies and would not take it out of context and was "not an open lecture", despite being on his website.

"When I said children, I did not mean, of course, if you're going to get a five- or seven-year-old coming to attack you, you can stop him," he said yesterday.

"I was talking about self-defence. If you get attacked by someone, then you have the right to defend yourself. It doesn't mean you go kill them, especially if it's someone young."

To find a parallel, he may well be the equivalent of a rosh yeshiva giving a theoretical lecture on the finer points of law to his shiur, where there is no intent for them to put anything into practice. Under discussion was the exact parameters of an injunction on the killing of children in war. I can imagine parallels to that article a while back in Beis Yitzchak, which brought down in the course of a theoretical discussion one opinion as to whether the Biblical injunction on lo tirtzach applied to akum, which some silly people got upset about and made a whole hullabaloo, causing a major chillul Hashem. Here, some people might have blown this theoretical discussion out of proportion and applied PC principles to his lecture, and the other Muslim leaders are left to denounce him in order to reduce the chillul Allah.

Of course, context is key, and given the fact that in general, many Muslims are practically going out and waging jihad, and given that I don't know what he preaches generally, or what he defined as children attacking, it might be rather awful. A summary of his speech which heads the article is not promising in this regard:

THE deputy spiritual leader of Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali has told his students that it is "obligatory" for all Muslims to engage in jihad if an Islamic country is under attack, even if it means killing the enemy's children.

What is meant by "under attack?"

However, in principle, applied to the correct set of circumstances, he may well be correct. In war, it is considered immoral to kill civilians. Killing (civilian) women and children, presumed to be defenseless and not posing a threat, is considered wrong.

But what if the enemy uses this moral stand of yours to his advantage, and puts the children in harm's way, or even sends the children into battle. Must you stand stock-still and allow yourself or your fellow soldiers to be killed or wounded?

What if they send kids to throw stones (which can seriously injure) at soldiers, while in the background are gunmen shooting at the soldiers. The children are part of the attack. In Israel, this is what the Palestinians often do. In such a situation, where the children are part of the attack, I do not think that it is out of bounds to shoot and kill the hostile children, especially where the alternative is putting yourself at risk. Inevitably, the world condemnation which will result may be a reason not to do this, but perhaps -- probably -- there should not be world condemnation for this.