Although police dropped the ball initially, the government’s defense establishment has since moved into high gear.
When the boys did not reappear within the first 48 hours, nearly the entire Hamas leadership in Judea and Samaria was rounded up – some 150 men. Those who ‘resisted’ – a popular word these days in the terrorist lexicon – found the IDF hierarchy in no mood for games. This time the IDF authorized its soldiers to use whatever force was necessary to bring its quarry back.
Thus an iron-reinforced door was blown up in Hevron and two Hamas officials arrested and taken into custody. In Jelazoun, north of Ramallah, a rioting mob was managed with tear gas, but when bullets began to fly, soldiers returned live fire. One of the rioters died in the exchange and two others were wounded; the Hamas fugitives were arrested and taken into custody.
‘Operation Brother’s Keeper’ has been launched to retrieve the hostages being held by the terrorists. But it is clear there are other objectives as well – such as cleaning out the terrorist infrastructure that has crept across the country.
For months, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have infiltrated throughout Judea and Samaria, as well as numerous neighborhoods in Jerusalem and parts of the Negev in southern Israel.
Mahmoud Abbas long ago lost political and military control over areas in Judea and Samaria he once ruled. Last week’s kidnapping was an open challenge to his position – a sort of ‘thumbing our nose in your face’ kind of gesture, telling Abbas that his day is over, that Fatah is finished in Judea and Samaria, as it was in Gaza in 2007. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are taking over – that is the message to Abbas, to Fatah, and Israel.
This new intifada has been brewing for more than a year. Green radical Islamist flags have flown during every Israeli election in Bedouin towns in the Negev. The radical northern Islamic movement freely denounces the State of Israel and calls for its destruction – and yet the organization is not outlawed.
In fact, Israeli Arab Knesset Member Hanin Zoabi today (Tuesday) went so far as to proclaim that the terrorist kidnappers were not kidnappers at all — and excused the attack by telling an interviewer on Radio Tel Aviv, “People are living under occupation. Their lives are not normal.”
Why not? The government long ago outlawed a dissenting Jewish political group founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane that called for admittedly ‘politically incorrect’ actions distasteful to many – encouragement of the Arab population to move elsewhere, out of Israel. Kahane himself was assassinated abroad for his views.
No one in authority to this day says a word about it. But when Arab lawmakers routinely align themselves with other entities like the Palestinian Authority unity government, or with Arab nations, and they publicly call for Israel’s annihilation, they are allowed to stand free and remain in the Knesset, even reaping the financial and other benefits of their positions.
Why? How? No other nation in the world would allow the kinds of actions anyone would label ‘treason.’
It is in this way that we have now reached this season. We have empowered the terrorists, and we have empowered the international community to embolden them as well.
And now it is we who must face this threat from within – for a true threat it is – and dismantle it before it destroys us.
We have made a very good start. Thank G-d, thank G-d we have at the helm top leadership in one of the best of all possible governments.