After the kidnapping: Israel, murder, Netanyahu’s failure

Three Jewish boys who had been kidnapped and killed because they were Jews had been buried for less than a day when an Arab 16-year old was murdered in Jerusalem, then incinerated. Within hours, several things happened, none of them good:

-Jewish politicians and police officials—including Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat—stupidly rushed to condemn the murder, after wild rumours had circulated that it was the work of Jewish extremists looking for "revenge” (Haaretz, Times of Israel, Arutz Sheva).

-As if on cue, Arabs rioted in Jerusalem. Quickly, more than 50 Arabs were reported injured by police (ibid).

-PLO news reported how Israel was ‘treating’ its ‘citizens’ in its Jerusalem: Israelis were firing tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades, and live fire at the rioters (ibid).

-Like a wildfire, riots spread to other Arab enclaves surrounding Jerusalem. Arabs threw stones, Molotov cocktails and at least four pipe bombs at Israeli security forces (Times of Israel, Arutz Sheva).

-Forest fires broke out in four areas around Jerusalem (“Multiple Fires Break Out Near Jerusalem”, Arutz Sheva, July 2, 2014). Arson is suspected (ibid).

-PA spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh blamed the State of Israel for the murder (“Senior Official: Arab Teen's Murder Criminal, not Nationalistic”, Arutz Sheva, July 2, 2014).  Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas blamed the State of Israel for what he called, ‘the cold blooded abduction and murder of the Arab youth by settlers" (ibid).

-Fatah (Abbas’ political party) called the murder of the Arab teen a ‘war crime’ (ibid).

-Hamas picked up on this theme of blaming the entire State of Israel. It threatened to commit its own war crime by stating that the entire ‘Zionist entity’ will ‘pay the price’ for this murder (“Hamas vows to make Israel pay over killed teen”, Times of Israel, July 2, 2014). In case you miss the point, that threat promises collective punishment. That’s a war crime.

Naturally, no one noticed Hamas’ call to commit a war crime. No world leaders condemned Hamas’ threat to use collective punishment against Israel. Instead, world leaders rushed to condemn the killing of the Arab teen, with the carefully worded but implicit suggestion that Israel was to blame.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with condemning a murder. What is wrong is this: no one knows that Jews killed him; and, we all noticed, it took less than 12 hours for those condemnations to begin. It took days before any world leaders thought to condemn the kidnapping of the three Jewish teens.

-The full recording of the frantic phone call made by one of the kidnapped Jewish teens to the emergency police hotline was released. Police had originally said that the call was dismissed because it sounded like a prank. Police didn’t act on the call for a full 8 hours. Now we hear what the police heard. Reportedly, one can hear the boys shouting. One can hear gunshots—then whooping and joyous singing in Arabic (ibid).

-Islamic Jihad—which, like Hamas, is part of the militantly anti-Semitic Muslim Brotherhood—has joined the attacks on Israel by announcing today (July 3, 2014) that all Jews living in Judea-Samaria were legitimate targets. This Arab declaration, like the one by Hamas, promotes ‘collective punishment’; and, since this explicit targeting of Jews meets the definition for genocide, it is also a call to genocide.

Naturally, no one noticed.

-In a single 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday morning, Gazans fired at least thirty rockets into Israel (Arutz Sheva). No one noticed.

-Israel Prime Minister met for the second time in two days with his security cabinet to discuss the kidnapping, this Arab murder, and the riots. For the second day in a row, it couldn’t arrive at any ‘concrete decisions’ (Times of Israel, ibid).

Israel is at war. Hamas, Abbas and Islamic Jihad all call for collective punishment of the Jewish state. Their declarations also meet the definition of ‘genocide’.

Our Jewish leaders behave stupidly. It is possible that the murder of the Arab teen was a premeditated crime (possibly committed by his own family as a form of honour killing). It is also possible that the killing was opportunistically, cynically timed to provoke tensions.

This is a horrid accusation. But the Arabs who surround us are not moral people. They are not honest people. They do not believe in—or want—peace with Jews.

They want death to the Jew. They want war.

They now have it. We are at war.

Netanyahu’s rush to suggest that his own people have committed a heinous crime at a moment of great tensions seems to suggest that he is more concerned with what others think than he is with us. His demeaning inferences do not help or protect his own people.

Does he intend to abandon us, our ancestral Jewish homeland—and the Promise of our Heritage? His inflammatory words, coupled with his political paralysis, suggest that he is lost.

We must pray that he finds his Jewish compass—soon.