Recriminations don’t help. But five years of captivity for one fine Israeli soldier and 1,027 freed murderous terrorists later, we seem to be back at square one.
Last Thursday’s kidnapping of three teenage yeshiva students has the ring of horrible familiarity. Even Gil-ad Shaar’s name is eerily reminiscent of that of Gilad Shalit and already the political analysts say that the roots of last week’s horrible events lie in the deal to free Shalit.
So as my liberal values fly through the window, I ask if it’s time for the State of Israel to consider the ultimate penalty for kidnap and murder?
I end this quite terrified piece by republishing a couple of paragraphs from another I wrote in April 2012 about a Passover outing to the Jordan River Valley Park that ended with a request for a lift from a couple of young strangers:
“ … our delightful tiyul (trip) ended on a curiously personal note: We were leaving Bethsaida with a view to breaking our homeward journey at Capernaum (Kfar Nahum) when a couple of boys in their early teens knocked on the car window.
“Somehow we understood that they needed a lift to Tiberius - a favourite place of mine. So we exchanged covert glances – who could resist two such sweet faced yeshiva (Talmudic) students? – and invited them to jump in.
Kfar Nahum could wait for the next holiday. After a short journey, we dropped our new friends in town to walk their final few steps back home….”
Oh, how I wish we’d been at Gush Etzion last Thursday evening to offer Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, 16 a ride home. This is where the hitchhiking has to stop.
© Natalie Wood (14 June 2014)
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