MULLINGS
Easterine Kire
[dropcap]N[/dropcap]aftaliFraenkel,(16)EyalYifrach, (19)and GiladShaar(16), the names of these three boys will be remembered in this generation for a long time. On the 12th of June, the three of them hitched a hike home. They never reached their destination. The trio were last seen south of Jerusalem. After the realisation that the boys had been kidnapped, the manhunt has been massive. More than a thousand Israeli soldiers are looking for the boys. In their search operations, they have restricted civilian movement in and out of Hebron, where their searches are concentrated.
Since the operations began, Lazar Berman, news editor at the Times of Israel, writes that 361 Palestinians have been arrested, 1,701 sites have been searched and five Palestinians have been killed in clashes with the Israeli forces. The arrests made are of former terrorist Palestinians captured by Israel and released in one of the many deals where Palestine had captured Israeli soldiers and traded solitary soldiers for as many as 400 Palestinian terrorist prisoners. The Israeli forces are working on scrutinising caves, wells and stone terraces in the area which are being carefully combed for any traces of the missing boys.
In the course of their search operations, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has uncovered numerous Hamas terrorist hideouts. However, the operation has come under criticism by anti-Israel NGO groups. Amnesty has condemned the closure of the Kerem and Erez crossings with Gaza, saying that it prevents Palestinians from travelling to their places of employment in Israel or in Israeli settlements.”The use of collective punishment cannot be justified for any reason whatever, including violations by another party,” states the Amnesty condemnation. This is one of the many examples of anti-Israel NGOs trying to prevent the ‘Operation Brother’s Keeper’ by the Israeli forces.
In addition to pressure from the NGOs to restrict movement and activity of the search operations,prominent Palestinian leaders like lawmaker MK HaninZoabi are adding tension to the situation. Zoabi has made public statements that the Israeli authorities now consider as incitement. Zoabi has been quoted as saying she doubted that the kidnappings really took place and that Israel’s search operationfor the kidnapped boys was tantamount to terrorism. Prior to that she had said that the kidnappings were not done by terrorists, but by ordinary people who saw no other way of changing their situation and making Israel see their suffering.At the same time, Zoabi has dissociated herself from a teenage Palestinian relative who came out openly on You Tube condemning the kidnappings and supporting Israel.
International organisations have been slow to come forward and condemn the kidnappings. After a long silence, the US has now expressed condemnation via John Kerry of the kidnappings. One of the boys is a US citizen. The UN and the Red Cross were one of the first bodies to condemn the act, but other organisations have not come forward yet.
Rachel Fraenkel, mother ofNaftali, in her address to the UN council said that “much more can be done and should be done by so many.” Both before and after her address, Human Rights organisations scathingly criticised the Israeli military searchfor the missing boys and called it ‘collective punishment’ of the Palestinians.
In the meantime, at a rally called “Bring back our boys” in Hamburg, Germany organised by the Young forum of the German-Israel Society and the Hamburg for Israel network, an elderly German man was beaten and his daughter attacked when she tried to protect her father. Their attackers were members of the anti-Semitic anti-globalisation group that calls itself ATTAC.
The repercussions from actions surrounding the kidnappings are wide ranging. Pro-Zion Christian writer Brian Schrauger, living in Palestinian territory was visited by officials from the PA or Palestinian Authority and put through a thorough interrogation. At the end of it he was advised to leave, and his interrogators did not disguise the fact that he would be killed if he didn’t take their advice.Schrauger had been targeted because he was highly critical of the narrative offered by Palestinian Christians about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel’s effort to retrieve her sons is being met with a wave of anti-Semitism globally. At least this tragedy has spiritually united Jews around the world and many prayers are being sent up over the safe return of the boys. One can only hope that prayers will do what anti-Semitism is desperately opposing.
Israel seems to be virtually alone in her mission of bringing back her boys safe and alive, while she simultaneously bears the brunt of the hypocrisy of a world community that claims to condemn wars that target children, but turns a blind eye when the victims are Israeli.
