Israeli Occupation Army harasses Palestinians on Pretext of Missing Settler Youth

[Watser?]

I am not a big believer in conspiracy theories, but I have serious doubts any Palestinians could kidnap 3 settler 'kids' (one of them is 19, the others 16) in area C (under full Israeli control) and get away with it. But even if this was a real kidnapping, 'searching for them' in Jenin and Nablus in the northern West Bank which are almost impossible to reach from the Hebron area in the south where the settlers disappeared at the best of times, let alone after the search that has been going on for the last week. So yeah, at the very least they are using it as an excuse to launch a full-out attack on the Palestinian unity gov't. Abbas is not gonna survive this I think, politically. The Israelis are putting him on the spot as a collaborator while driving a wedge between him and Hamas (and between him and Palestinian public opinion). They're also trying to divert attention from the hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners who are held in 'administrative detention', which in practice means kidnapped and held without any charges whatsoever.
Israeli Occupation Army harasses Palestinians on Pretext of Missing Settler Youth | Informed Comment

Israel Using Teenager Kidnapping to Cripple Hamas
Tel Aviv's only agenda is oppression of Palestinians
The kidnapping of a nation
Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike enters its 56th day

ETA: This could get out of hand in other ways too: 5 Hamas fighters die in explosion

[Watser?]

What evidence is there that teens were abducted?

UN 'Unsure' If Kidnapping Really Happened
Funeral held for Palestinian boy shot by Israeli troops

Thousands of people have attended the funeral of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy.

Mohammed Dudin was killed in the occupied West Bank during an arrest raid by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) looking for three Israeli teenagers who went missing over a week ago.

[MonCapitan2002]

That the US props up such a violent and barbaric regime disgusts me. Then again, it's no different from the US supporting Saddam Hussein when his enemy was Iran.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the people of Israel at all. What I loathe is their government. What makes the situation worse is that you have Fundamentalist Christians supporting them in the insane and delusional belief that by helping them in the short term, they'll bring about Armageddon, the Rapture and the End Times.

Seriously, the Israelis are just as bad, if not worse than the Palestinian militants. I sincerely believe that their endgame is the complete expulsion of the Palestinians from the region.

[Watser?]

While our governments are tut-tutting but supporting pretty much everything Israel does in practice, there is hope though: Presbyterian Church (USA) Makes Controversial Divestment Move Against Israel

Slow as a glacier maybe, but change is coming and just as irreversible as said glacier.

[MonCapitan2002]

Already they're being accused of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment. Here's a news flash. Being against a nation's tyrannical policies does not constitute being against the right of the state to exist.

[Watser?]

Okay, that does it, now I'm sure these 'kids' were never kidnapped: Israel maintains gag order in missing teens' case, leading to charge of media 'manipulation'

They are very likely dead and the Israelis have know from the start: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/20...s-likely-dead/

[Watser?]

One of the reasons officials are hopeful that the youths will be found alive is because no demands have been made by any terrorist group yet – indicating that they are still being held where Israel can reach and rescue them.

IDF: No Demands A Good Sign - Defense/Security - News - Arutz Sheva


Every other police officer in the world would see the lack of any ransom demand or claim of responsibility as a sign that they are dead...

[Watser?]

Israeli social media is starting to push rumors the boys may be dead.

In Israel and Palestine, the kids are not alright

[Watser?]

The Israelis came out with 'proof' and named two Palestinians they claim are responsible for the alleged kidnapping. But in reality all they do is name two Palestinians, there is no actual evidence they had anything to do with the disappearances:

If you’ve followed today’s developments with the naming of two suspects in the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, you must be very careful to understand what’s being conveyed. You’re told, as in misleading headlines like this (“Shin Bet names two Hamas militants as West Bank kidnappers“), the Shin Bet has named the perpetrators of the kidnapping. But if you read the fine print, it hasn’t.

The two suspects named have not been directly associated with the crime in any way. They merely disappeared the same day as the kidnapping. So the Shin Bet is putting various clues together (it’s arrested many of their relatives and questioned them mercilessly, including a pregnant wife) and from this deduces that they committed the crime. But as in many similar incidents involving Israeli intelligence, you have to take a step back and compare what you’re told with the evidence that’s actually been offered.

Hebron Kidnapping: Don’t Believe the Lies Tikun-Olam Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם

[Watser?]

It's kinda funny that based on the available evidence right now, two Palestinians could be abducted by three Israelis...

[MonCapitan2002]

Theoretically, it is possible all five were abducted by a third party.

[Angakuk]

Alien abductions. That's my guess.

[Watser?]

Israel journalists say missing teenagers found dead

Three kidnapped Israeli teens found dead in the West Bank

[Sauron]

How many Palestinians were killed in the Israelis' search for these teens?

Seems to me that any necessary Israeli retribution has already been taken during the search itself.

[Watser?]

That's why they had a 'search', so they could do all that and THEN come up with the revenge crap.

[ceptimus]

If the Israelis know who the suspects are (they claim to know and have burned down their houses) why don't they just arrest the suspects and put them on trial? Why is it necessary for them to launch an aggressive military action over this - an action that will most likely result in more deaths and injuries for both sides?

(Though, as usual, because of the huge asymmetry of armaments of the two sides, there will be many more Palestinians killed and injured than there will be Israelis).

[Watser?]

The suspects have gone missing too...

Here's a pretty good article from the Christian Science Monitor, they usually come up with much better stuff than most US media: How Israeli teen murders are portrayed in Arabic and Hebrew media - CSMonitor.com (don't take the Israel quiz though, it's kinda stupid)

So now we just wait until there's a massacre that US or European politicians feels is just a tad too bloody to let slip and then things will 'calm down' to one or two dead Palestinians a week until the next Israeli dies...

Yeah, it's hard not to get cynical over all the fucking politicians falling over themselves to condemn this horrible murder. It's a pretty bad case of missing white girl syndrome on a planet-wide scale.

[davidm]

At the blog Why Evolution is True, Jerry Coyne demonstrates yet again why being a brilliant biologist does not make you a good person or a brilliant person or even a competent person outside your parochial field of study.

Check out his vile nonsense on this issue.

Yes, we should mourn three Israeli teens -- they did not deserve to die. Shall we not also mourn all the generations of Palestinians who have been killed, maimed, mutilated and denied any sort of opportunity for betterment by the Israeli occupation? Why are their countless names not plastered all over the headlines? Sure, Coyne says he favors a two-state solution, but how can this come about? The possibility of effectuating this end with an economic and academic boycott of Israel, which worked well with apartheid South Africa, is angrily rejected by Coyne.

I can't comment at his blog, because he banned me, and you probably can't either, if you want to give him a piece of your mind, because he screens comments before letting them through. He's a coward, of course, though very brave against creationists. He's also believes in hard determinism: no one is to blame for what they do! Hey Jerry, if the people who killed the Israeli teens are not to blame for what they do, why are you blaming them, and blaming Hamas? Well, he's too much of an idiot to see the blatant contradiction. He also can't seem to discover the fact that if hard determinism is true, then evolutionary outcomes are not contingent, as he insists. He's a goon to laugh at, were life not so tragic.

[davidm]

From Coyne's blog post:

Would we exercise restraint if, say, the Mexican government fired rockets into Texas and their operatives killed*three American teenagers in Arizona?

What a stupid analogy. No, we probably wouldn't, and shouldn't. (Though why not exercising restraint necessarily means KILLING people is not explained.)

But this isn't the point at all, is it, Jerry? First, you seem to have conveniently forgotten that the United States STOLE the American southwest from the Mexicans in the Mexican-American war, a war that Abraham Lincoln, then a congressman, denounced. That got him driven from politics (temporarily, fortunately) by people like you.

Be that as it may, today the U.S. and Mexico accept the border, the exact opposite of the case between Israel and Palestine.

A more relevant analogy would be this: Suppose Nazi Germany had won World War II, and to this day occupied two-thirds of France, including Paris. What would you expect the people of occupied France to do? Just roll over and accept that status quo?

If you don't want your innocent citizens killed, don't occupy other people's lands and kill, maim and oppress their innocents. Pretty fucking basic. But beyond the comprehension of Jerry Coyne.

[Watser?]

I know the people in this country started non-violent resistance within a month of occupation and when that was met with violence started killing Germans and collaborators. Even cold blooded murders of unarmed collaborators were considered acceptable forms of resistance. If they had rockets to fire at Germany they wouldn't have hesitated.

But an analogy I always liked was Britain an Northern Ireland. With Northern Ireland playing the role of the West Bank, the UK mainland as Israel and Ireland as mostly Gaza but before that Lebanon and before that Jordan as their favorite target for 'retaliation' bombings. Even if the IRA crossed into the UK from Ireland, the UK didn't arrest hundreds of random Northern Irelanders, or bomb towns in Ireland. They were nasty sometimes but this is a level that would never be tolerated in Europe. This you can only do to people who don't really count as human in the first place.

[davidm]

The New York Times published this article on Sunday, before it was known that that the Israeli teens were killed.

What I want to know is, does Jerry Coyne or his ilk give a shit about Moahmmed Dudeen? Oh, if challenged they may SAY they do, but they are lying.

The fact that this guy, Coyne, could compare today's settled American/Mexican border to the unsettled border of Israel/Palestine, speaks volumes of his dishonesty, and others like him. For surely he knows exactly why the analogy is false.

[Watser?]

So settlers (probably) murdered a Palestinian teen who was found in East-Jerusalem today. Palestinians there are rioting (that's pretty rare, it's usually quiet there at least) and now Abbas is demanding Natanyahu apologies. Which, yeah that's gonna happen.
Palestine demands Israel condemn murder of east Jerusalem teenager in suspected revenge attack - World - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[Watser?]

Also:

As usual with IDF/government propaganda, you have to do further research in order to discover the truth. In this case, the claim that the kidnappers were associated with Hamas is tenuous at best. Further, the claim that Hamas commanded or ordered the kidnapping is flat out a lie.

Hebron Kidnappers Went Rogue, Against Hamas Wishes Tikun-Olam Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם

[Watser?]

How the public was manipulated into believing the teens were alive | +972 Magazine

[erimir]

Originally Posted by davidm

I can't comment at his blog, because he banned me, and you probably can't either

I tried to make a comment pointing out how ridiculous another comment was suggesting that Jews are attacked simply for "existing".

And I also pointed out the irony of these staunch atheists supporting a Jewish state, when they rightly resist a Christian state in America. And the fact that the growing hyper-Orthodox minority in Israel is really not that different from the conservative Muslims they decry in how they treat women or gays.

I don't think it's going to be posted.