Bring back our boys

Last week three teenagers were abducted from their homes in an Israeli settlement on the West Bank. Israel has been quick to blame Hamas for this outrage, but it is not their style. They usually admit responsibility immediately for their kidnappings and quickly move to negotiate with the Israeli authorities, usually for the release of their own people from Israeli jails. That has not happened this time, which makes some observers to wonder exactly what is going on. Some have even suggested that elements in the Israeli far-right might be responsible, in a tactic to ensure the so called "peace talks" never get off the ground. I wouldn't put it past them...


In response the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) have set up a facebook page cleverly entitled "Bring back our Boys", but it has been subverted by an equally clever counter-campaign from the Palestinians, who have been flooding the site with entries like "How about bringing back our boys?". This refers to the fact that hundreds, perhaps thousands of Palestinian youths, mainly boys, are at this moment languishing in Israeli prisons, many under trumped-up charges like stone throwing. Many spend years in jail before their cases ever come to court; some are simply released without charge after lengthy spells inside with no apology and certainly no chance of compensation. This is happening right now: forty young men were arrested yesterday as the IDF roiled through the refugee camps on the West Bank  in their search for their own missing boys, and many more will doubtless be taken in over the next few days and weeks.


This is how it works when one nation has dominion over another: rule by decree, divide and rule, deprive and exploit. It's been this way ever since Jews began landing in their "homeland" in 1948 and pushed the existing occupants aside to establish their brave new Jewish state. And it's getting worse every day.