After 18 days of fear and worry, the families of the three Israeli teenagers who disappeared while coming home from school, were informed that their sons had been found, bound and murdered and buried in a shallow grave.
Teens found dead
I pray for strength for their families and friends in their time of grief.
Sad beyond words. My heart aches.
ReplyDeletePray for Israel.
I was tremendously saddened to read this Fay. I cannot imagine what their families are experiencing. I'll pray for Israel, and for all civilized people.
ReplyDeleteThis is just horrible. Unthinkable. Hearing the phone message that surfaced left no doubt that these people will stop at nothing. Nothing will change until they are gone. No one is safe, they value no life.
ReplyDeleteI had a whole comment here which just disappeared.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to apologize for not commenting or posting here for a long while. I do visit every day but I've been insanely busy at home (renovations) and on my blog.
The kidnapping obsessed the Israeli public like nothing I've ever seen before, from right wing to left, religious to secular, settlers to Tel Avivians. Not even when Gilad Shalit was kidnapped did we see the news dominated by the story. Perhaps because Shalit was a soldier so we "expect" these things to happen, but here it was teenagers just going home from school.
I think it was also because it happened in Gush Etzion, which while the world might consider it "occupied territory" is very much a "consensus area" in Israel, i.e. everyone knows this will stay Israeli territory even in the calamitous event of a withdrawal. Gush Etzion has a whole history and a very emotional link to the Israeli memory. It was supposed to be part of Israel at the time of partition but in 1948 the Jewish residents were ethnically cleansed by marauding Arabs, the men were murdered and the women and children taken into captivity. So it was seen as natural justice after 1967 when the area was rebuilt and repopulated.
As an aside my youngest daughter lives there, and her husband passed right by that junction at the time of the kidnapping, but he didn't notice anything untowards. It's so scary that it's so close to home.
The story also united the Jewish world in an unprecedented way. I do not remember ever so many prayer services, vigils, demos and rallies across the world, in every denomination: Orthodox, haredi (ultra Orthodox), reform, Conservative. Not to mention amongst our Christian friends.
I just hope this unity continues long after the memories of the boys have faded from the public memory.
The families of the boys are simply amazing awesome people in their dignity, grace and nobility in the face of such a terrible tragedy, and all played out in the public eye.
May G-d give them strength and comfort, and may the memories of Gil-Ad, Naftali and Eyal be for a blessing.
In some shameless self-promotion, you can find the items I posted about the boys on my blog under the search
ReplyDeleteMy sister posted a beautiful comment there about the funeral yesterday - she went to Eyal Yifrah's funeral in Elad partly because her son knows Eyal's brother. I was at home having my a/c fixed. The technician told me his son had also gone because he had been a classmate of Eyal. The technician and I watched the funeral on TV together, both of us crying. An only-in-Israel moment.
My elder son went to the main funeral in Modi'in because it's on his way home from work and he wanted to show solidarity and accompany the boys on their last journey. There were so many shuttle buses that they couldn't take people back to the main road - there was no room for them to turn round! So he walked an hour back to his car.
They reckon there were 50,000 people at the funeral. To me it looked like more.
Even today they're still playing sad songs on the radio. The country has been knocked for six.
And yet - we need to act against the bastards. As I replied to Lewy14 on my blog:
What annoys the hell out of me is the world calling on Israel for restraint. When have we ever NOT been restrained?? We are ALWAYS restrained, otherwise there’d not be a bloody Palestinian left walking this earth nor any roof for them to live under. Compare Israel’s responses through the decades and wars to the West’s anywhere in the Middle East, Yugoslavia, Africa…
Well, I don’t need to preach to you but the smug self-righteous hypocrisy of the US and Europe makes me sick.
Annie, I wouldn't worry too much about the whole "restraint" thing. It's standard diplomatic boilerplate.
DeleteSee, e.g., the US urging restraint on China and Japan in their maritime disputes. Ditto the Philippines, Vietnam, etc...
When has Japan not acted with restraint since 1945? Yes, even China, in relative terms, acts with restraint. Yeah they have some hotdog pilots and used water cannon, rammed some fishing vessels... but as international incidents go this is relatively restrained.
Non-restraint looks like what North Korea does: test nukes, launch ballistic missiles, shell islands, sink ships, kidnap foreigners by the hundreds, etc. One might argue that calls for restraint might apply only to North Korea, but hey, the US and the EU dish it out pretty much to everyone - and to each other. The treatment of Israel is not exceptional in this regard.
Again, my only advice is that Israel practice exactly what the US is practicing at this point. Do not arrest or imprison any Hamas operatives. They will just become fresh bargaining chips leading to more kidnappings. Just kill them.
Oh I had a link to the whole China / Japan thing: South China Morning Post...
DeleteAs Bill Whittle has said, the reason for the proliferation of terrorist activities around the world and sabre rattling is because of the insistence on "proportionate" responses. If we went in and kicked the asses of the aggressors, they would think twice about taking such action again.
DeleteArgh. So much for my self-promotion. I forgot the link! If you search under the "kidnapping" tag you'll find most of my posts on this tragic story if you're interested.
ReplyDeleteShameless self promotion? You are doing us a favour, Annie.
ReplyDelete"Again, my only advice is that Israel practice exactly what the US is practicing at this point. Do not arrest or imprison any Hamas operatives. They will just become fresh bargaining chips leading to more kidnappings. Just kill them.
ReplyDeleteI'm with lewy, but only his last sentence.
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Annie, your accounts of the mood of Israel and the unifying effect of the boys' funerals is heartbreaking. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.
ReplyDeleteI need to get over to your blog more often, my friend. I truly apologize for not being a regular visitor. Your writing is superb, and I also enjoy the comments. Keep it up!