What Sayed Kashua wishes for the 3 kidnapped boys
The teens’ kidnapping is terrible, but seeing only half the picture is no less terrible.
By Sayed Kashua | Jun. 20, 2014 |
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Kidnapping is a terrible thing, and if, heaven forbid, it should turn out that something happened to those kids, it will be an unmitigated tragedy. Sorry for the generalization (you started it ...), but you really don’t understand what Arabs feel when they see images of children who were killed and a uniformed army that is whitewashing, setting up commissions, maybe even holding trials – and in the best case saying it’s a mistake, or sometimes, when it’s really serious, apologizing. Apologizing? I don’t remember that anymore.
Sometimes I wonder whether, if the Palestinians were capable of invading homes in Israel, of sending in soldiers to wrest people out of their beds in front of their families; if they had intelligence that was able to come up with the names of perpetrators, planners, instigators and simply people with the potential to be dangerous one day – what would things look like then? If the Palestinians possessed military capability like the Israelis have – sophisticated planes, smart missiles and the ability to strike only at military infrastructure – who would behave a little more humanely in that case?