Official PA daily writes kidnapped boys were soldiers, one from "an elite unit"
Op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, columnist for official PA daily and advisor to former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on national affairs
“The kidnapping of the three [Israeli] settlers (if the story is indeed true, and not a show [put on by] Netanyahu) [parentheses in source] on Thursday, June 12, in the vicinity of the Gush Etzion settlement, and in an area under full Israeli security control, exposes a great Israeli weakness. It also indicates that the military strength in which the Israeli ethnic cleansing state takes pride, the organized and routine terrorism against the Palestinian people, and all the methods of coercion, the aggression and violations are now a burden on the right-wing government, because power is not measured by the quantity of weapons or their various types and sizes, but rather by their suitable use by those who are in charge of them…
The kidnapping of the three settlers also reveals the wretched state of the Israeli military establishment, since one of the kidnapped is from an elite unit, and the two others belong to the Israeli security establishment. This suggests a flaw in training and fighting abilities, and emphasizes [the fact] that no matter how many weapons and how much ammunition the occupation has, it will remain cowardly and defeated from inside, and the opposite is true for the Palestinian, who is defending his identity and his national project and goals.”
Note: The columnist is claiming that the three kidnapped Israelis are soldiers, but in fact two, aged 16, were in high school, and the one aged 19 was also a student. The boys' bodies were found by Israeli security forces near Hebron on June 30, 2014. They appeared to have been shot to death soon after the abduction.
“The kidnapping of the three [Israeli] settlers (if the story is indeed true, and not a show [put on by] Netanyahu) [parentheses in source] on Thursday, June 12, in the vicinity of the Gush Etzion settlement, and in an area under full Israeli security control, exposes a great Israeli weakness. It also indicates that the military strength in which the Israeli ethnic cleansing state takes pride, the organized and routine terrorism against the Palestinian people, and all the methods of coercion, the aggression and violations are now a burden on the right-wing government, because power is not measured by the quantity of weapons or their various types and sizes, but rather by their suitable use by those who are in charge of them…
The kidnapping of the three settlers also reveals the wretched state of the Israeli military establishment, since one of the kidnapped is from an elite unit, and the two others belong to the Israeli security establishment. This suggests a flaw in training and fighting abilities, and emphasizes [the fact] that no matter how many weapons and how much ammunition the occupation has, it will remain cowardly and defeated from inside, and the opposite is true for the Palestinian, who is defending his identity and his national project and goals.”
Note: The columnist is claiming that the three kidnapped Israelis are soldiers, but in fact two, aged 16, were in high school, and the one aged 19 was also a student. The boys' bodies were found by Israeli security forces near Hebron on June 30, 2014. They appeared to have been shot to death soon after the abduction.