Kidnapped

The kidnapping of the three yeshiva boys from the Etzion area is currently gripping Israel.   Apparently they were taken by Hamas operatives as they were hitch-hiking home around 10 pm, but the alarm was not sounded until about 5 hrs later when the parents of one of them went to the police station.  A massive man-hunt is under way involving the IDF and intelligence agencies.  About 150 mostly Hamas leaders have been arrested and are being interrogated.  I assume this is a maneuver by the Govt. to put pressure on Hamas to release the boys, otherwise their organization will be greatly disrupted. There is cooperation with the PA security forces, although the extent of this is unclear.

Note that there have been other kidnappings by Islamist extremists.  In Nigeria 220 Christian girls were kidnapped from a  school in NE Nigeria by Boko Haram and have not been seen since except for a video showing them all in Muslim garb reciting a Muslim prayer.  This is a clear case of forced conversion, and it if far from the only case.  In Egypt and Iraq Christian girls disappear regularly and usually are never found.  It is estimated that in Egypt alone about 15,000 Coptic Christian girls are missing.  The fact that it is Muslims kidnapping Christians and Jews and not the other way around must be taken seriously. 

We note that the case of the Nigerian girls who have been kidnapped has become an international cause celebre.  But, don't expect the world to pay much attention to the three Jewish teens who have been kidnapped.  After all, they can be dismissed as "settlers" or even worse as persecutors of poor Palestinians.  The fact that the terrorist group Hamas, that is now in the Palestinian government, is responsible, hardly raises an eyebrow among the western elite leftist intelligentsia.  Even the western media aren't interested, after all they are only Jews.