Most civilized human beings around the world, even ones who belong to the Blame-Israel-First Club (and it is a large interfaith club, composed of Muslims, Christians and Jews, liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, light-skinned and dark-skinned) have had the grace to either express concern about the unjustified kidnapping of Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel, or have just kept their mouths shut. At least for now.
There have been some spectacularly offensive comments, mostly from anonymous cowardly tweeters, justifying the kidnapping either because the boys are “settlers” (actually two of the three boys live inside the “Green Line,” as if where they live should make any difference when discussing teenage boys kidnapped by genocidal terrorists) or because of vehement disagreements – well-informed or not – with the policies of the Israeli government.
But another ugly meme has been to distract from the anguish of the kidnapping by focusing on behavior by the Israeli government in the search for the boys. This is a refrain appearing more often in media accounts.
This distraction uses either the words “collective punishment,” or merely suggests that the arrests of the Palestinian Arabs in the disputed territories where the boys are believed to have been taken is unjustified, excessive and arbitrary.
Really?
The pictures which follow show some of the munitions found and removed from the homes of the Arabs which the IDF have arrested. Does this suggest that innocent bystanders are being unfairly “punished” by Israeli defenders seeking to recover three teenage schoolboys?
