Tag Archives: kidnapping

The Reason Palestinian Supporters Are Pulling Down Kidnapped Posters

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All over major cities in the world, people are putting up posters of the roughly 240 men, women and children who were taken captive from Israel by the Palestinian political-terrorist group Hamas. While people may walk past a posting of a lost dog, Palestinian supporters become enraged at seeing the signs of captive Israelis.

The reason is NOT because the Arab-Israeli conflict is complex. A complicated situation could still have people on each side see the basic humanity of the other, and appreciate that the kidnapping of civilians is an atrocious war crime.

Jihadi anti-Israel activists don’t think that the hostages are innocent because they view all of Israel as an illegal European colonial enterprise. Other anti-Israel activists understand that the basic strategy of Hamas relies on global opinion. Sympathy for Jews undercuts Palestinian defenses.

Israel invests significant intellectual and monetary capital in preventative defenses. It has bomb shelters in public space and homes. It uses its ‘Iron Dome’ missile defense system and built security barriers around Gaza and the West Bank to stop or slow the advance of Palestinian Arab terrorists. It blockaded the terrorist safe haven of Gaza to slow the shipment of weaponry.

Hamas, which rules Gaza, has not invested in any preventative defense system. It uses concrete for tunnels for its soldiers rather than bunkers for civilians. It uses its school system to educate Arabs that Jews are the enemy rather than develop scientific skills.

Hamas’s defenses completely rely on REACTIVE measures, such as world condemnation about Israeli attacks, and relying on Israel’s morality to not strike killers hiding amongst civilians and under hospitals.

Anti-Israel activists do not want people to remember the October 7 barbarity and only to focus on the current situation in Gaza. In doing so, they hope to flip the narrative of cause-and-effect, and make Israel the aggressor.

The presence of kidnapped posters for pro-Israel activists and decent people is a call to bring innocent civilians home. For anti-Israel activists, it prevents the world from defending Gazans and reminds everyone of the heinous barbarity of the Palestinians’ elected representative body.

Related articles:

Cause and Effect: Making Gaza

The World Ignores Peaceful Dying Refugees And Obsesses Over Murdering Synthetic Refugees

The Disproportionate Defenses of Israel and the Palestinian Authority

Pray for a Lack of “Proportionately” in Numbers. There will never be an Equivalence of Intent.

Palestinian Inversion Of Facts Based On Refusal To Coexist

Gazans Have Always Wanted To Kill Jews Inside Of Israel

Fun With Cause-and-Effect: Gaza Border Protests

Israel lends a hand. Will it be offered one as well?

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In May, Israel joined the US, Canada, France and England in providing support to Nigeria in its efforts to find the over 200 teenaged girls abducted by Boko Haram. “Israel expresses deep shock at the crime against the girls,” Netanyahu told the Nigerian president, “We are ready to help in finding the girls and fighting the cruel terrorism inflicted on you.”

Israel has a long history of providing aid to countries in trouble – even those where it does not have diplomatic relations, as seen in the video below.

It will be interesting to see if the world exerts pressure on, and withholds aid to the new Palestinian government, in light of the recent abduction of three Israeli teenagers. However, when one considers that only five of the 193 UN countries are helping Nigeria, one should temper expectations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mau1uaIGLo8

The NY Times begins its assault on Israel’s Search and Rescue

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It has been several weeks since Boko Haram kidnapped over 200 teenagers from their school. Over these weeks, the New York Times has repeatedly faulted the Nigerian government for not being aggressive enough in finding the girls. But in less than one week since the kidnapping of three Jewish teenagers, the New York Times is already running articles that Israel is too aggressive in trying to bring their boys back home.

NYT on Nigeria:

5/24/14: “That the hopes of many across the globe rests on such a weak reed as the Nigerian military has left diplomats here in something of a quandary about the way forward. The Nigerian armed forces must be helped, they say, but are those forces so enfeebled… the military presence on some of the region’s most dangerous roads is light, with only a handful of checkpoints”

5/27/4: [Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan] “responded to the kidnappings in the same way that he has responded to countless other Boko Haram atrocities (or indeed to the anti-civilian depredations of his own military): minimally, or not at all.”

NYT on Israel:

6/17/14 by Jodi Rudoren, the official NY Times reporter who covers news from a Palestinian perspective: “It was Day 3 of what Palestinians are universally calling a ‘siege’ on Hebron,” Jodi does not discuss the violent history of Hamas nor its past use of kidnapping. She quotes a “father of 10” (is this man with Hamas? A shopkeeper? Does his being a parent of 10 make him more or less reliable?): “’This is like they arrest 800,000 people in the Hebron area – look at the checkpoints.’”

Jodi continued that “many here and elsewhere in the Palestinian territories questioned whether the abductions even happened. Leaders referred to the ‘alleged kidnapping’ in their official statements… [Israel] staged the event…as a pretext to oust Hamas from the West Bank.”  Nice work getting a conspiracy theory into the public.

I wonder if the NY Times will get a reporter to cover the news from Boko Haram’s perspective. Perhaps they should send Jodi.

Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Missing Kids and Prayers

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This past Mother’s Day, US First Lady, Michelle Obama gave an impassioned address about the abducted teenaged girls in Nigeria. The White House highlighted her “thoughts, prayers and support in the wake of the unconscionable terrorist kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian girls.”

Her feelings were heartfelt about “this unconscionable act [that] was committed by a terrorist group” in abducting innocent girls going to school. Mrs. Obama continued that: “in these girls, Barack and I see our own daughters” and “that Barack has directed our government to do everything possible to support the Nigerian government’s efforts to find these girls and bring them home.”

The crime committed by Boko Haram was horrific and Michelle Obama’s comments were not just a reflection of the country’s disgust with the kidnapping, but a clever use of Mother’s Day to draw the entire nation to the cause.

It made me hopeful that yesterday, on Father’s Day, that the US President would address the country in a similar way, as it was just a few days after three teenage boys were abducted near their school in Israel – especially since one of the boys is a 16-year old American citizen.

But President Obama did not address the abduction at all.

(US Secretary of State John Kerry did offer that “the United States strongly condemns the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers and calls for their immediate release. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families. …We continue to offer our full support for Israel in its search for the missing teens.” It is curious that Kerry chose not to mention that one of the teens has dual USA-Israel citizenship- but at least he issued a strong statement.)

While President Obama may not look at these Jewish boys and “see his own daughters”, he should at least see innocent teenagers and especially an American citizen. His outrage should match Michelle’s. His labeling the kidnappers as terrorists should be unequivocal. His efforts to assist Israel to bring them home safely should be unwavering.

President Obama’s annual Father’s Day address talked about the importance of fathers being present to act as fathers to their children.  As his wife may remind him, we need the children to be safe at home with them to make that happen.