Settlements, the conventional wisdom says, are the true obstacles to peace in the Middle East. Not Palestinian intransigence. Not the fact that the Palestinians have been split into two groups—Hamas and the Palestinian Authority—for years. Not the fact that if the Palestinians really wanted to run their own lives, they could easily negotiate some kind of agreement with Israel. But first they’d have to actually sit down and negotiate, something they have refused to do for some time now. But none of this, the world exclaims, is the problem. The problem is settlements.
Not this.
A Gaza charity headed by the interior minister of the terrorist Hamas group on Wednesday offered $1.4 million to any Arab citizen of Israel who abducts a soldier.
The charity is not just Hamas-linked, as the AP headline states. It is part of Hamas, the current governing body of the Gaza Strip.
The Waad group from Gaza offered the bounty for Israeli soldiers in an e-mail sent to Palestinian media. The organization, which supports Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, is headed by Hamas’ Interior Minister Fathi Hamad. The minister did not return messages seeking comment.
The bounty is being offered in the typical Palestinian perversion of Israeli action.
Waad’s director, Usama Kahlout, said the bounty was in response to an Israeli group’s offer to pay Gaza residents for information on the whereabouts of Sgt. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured more than three years ago by Hamas-allied terrorists.
Got that? An Israeli group is trying to rescue Israeli soldiers by offering rewards for information that might help get them released. The Hamas group responds by offering a reward for more kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Their actions are so despicable that words simply fail after a while. And so is the AP’s comparison:
Israel is holding some 7,500 Palestinian prisoners. Schalit is the only Israeli held by Hamas, while four Israelis who disappeared in Lebanon in the 1980s remain unaccounted for.
Why, exactly, are there 7,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails? Hm. Let’s think. It may have something to do with breaking the law. Why is there an Israeli soldier in Gaza? Because he was kidnapped in a raid from Gaza into Israel that killed and wounded other Israeli soldiers. But sure, all that really counts is numbers, not context. Obviously, Israel disproportionately imprisons Palestinians.
This is, remember, the group that Jimmy Carter and others insist will moderate its terrorism and settle down in a state next to Israel.
Sure. Because that’s just what groups that want to live peacefully with their neighbors do—offer rewards to kidnappers.