Friday, April 15, 2011

041511

Today, in the news, I saw, with sorrow, but not with surprise, which also saddens me, that an Italian pro-Palestinian "activist" was found hanged in an empty apartment in Gaza.  He had been kidnapped by a splinter group whose leaders had been imprisoned by Hamas.  This group tried to pressure Hamas into releasing them by killing someone who came to Gaza to support them.  Does anything more need to be said about this hideous culture of death?

The splinters began back in the sixties, and continue to this day.  Every few years, some group of "students" decides that the group a few years older than them has gone soft, or was never radical enough, and they drive the process deeper and deeper into the abyss.  Fatah, Fatah Hawks, Force 17, Tanzim, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas.  PFLP, PFLP-GC.  Hamas, which in Arabic means "zeal", but in Hebrew means "violence".  And now this.  There has NEVER been a group that splintered off because it thought rationality, compromise, coexistence were good ideas.  Does anything more need to be said about this hideous culture of death?

It is six years since Gilad Shalit was kidnapped.  When was the last Jewish captive returned alive?  Does anyone believe Gilad will be the first?  That we shall ever see Ron Arad?  Zachary Baumel, Yehuda Katz, Zvi Feldman?  Whenever there is a trade, the Israelis bring people, and the other side denies all knowledge of the mutilated corpses they intend to return, because the Jews will give more on the off chance there might be ONE alive.  Does anything more need to be said about this hideous culture of death?

Just as a side note:  Hamas apparently is saying it is Israel's fault a bunch of Arabs in Judenrein Gaza kidnapped and murdered an Italian do-gooder.  Does anything more need to be said about this hideous culture of death?