Possibly some of the most cynical and downright ugly reporting on the kidnapping of three Israeli teens has come from Sky News. First the headline:
So according to this logic, it isn’t the kidnapping of Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel that has sparked this crisis but Israel’s response. It all started when Israel went looking for its boys.
But this is only the beginning. The rest of Tom Rayner’s article cynically accuses the government of Benjamin Netanyahu of using the kidnapping to further its own political ends vis-a-vis Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Of course the kidnapping cannot be separated from the wider political situation. Rayner, however, appears to whitewash the nature of Hamas.
By taking out the Hamas leadership, through arrests in the West Bank, and through airstrikes in Gaza, they [the IDF] are pursuing two goals.
The first, to strike a blow at the organisation’s ability to operate and emphasise its ‘terrorist’ character by the de-facto criminalisation of its detained members.
Airstrikes in Gaza over recent days have occurred as a direct response to Palestinian rockets fired at civilian targets. And rather than “taking out the Hamas leadership,” these airstrikes have targeted terrorist infrastructure sites rather than terrorist individuals from Hamas or any other terror organization.
As for “de-facto criminalisation” of detained Hamas members, what more does Rayner want to prove Hamas criminality or its “‘terrorist’ character?” Are suicide bombings, rocket and shooting attacks, not to mention kidnappings, not enough?
Furthermore, according to Rayner:
Making Hamas pay for a crime they’ve been accused of may make sense in the Israeli mind-set, but unleashing military force on a political organisation inevitably impacts the lives of civilians living in and around them.
Unleashing military force on a political organization?! From this description, Rayner would have you believe that Israel has been targeting peaceful members of a human rights group rather than a terror organization. Perhaps some of those arrested may not wield the guns or build the bombs but this does not mean that Hamas apparatchiks are wholly innocent bystanders.
From interviews with Palestinians protesting their innocence, to the description of the “illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba” with no qualifying statement, the accompanying video (the second video box on the right-hand column of the Sky News page) makes it clear where Rayner’s sympathies lie.
Indeed, throughout his report, Rayner has forgotten the most important part of this crisis – three Israeli boys have been kidnapped and the IDF is doing everything in its power to bring them home.
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