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PA daily: Kidnapping is a "spurious pretext"; don't rule out the possibility that "Israel itself is behind the 'kidnapping'"

Headline: "Stop Israel's terrorism!"
Op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for Al-Hayat Al-Jadida
     "The Israeli state's organized terrorism against the Palestinian Arab people has not ceased since the period preceding its establishment, [when it was carried out] by the Zionist terror organizations. The Zionist leaders maintained this policy after the establishment of Israel, in the wake of the Nakba (i.e., 'the catastrophe,' Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel) of the Palestinian Arab people in May 1948, and they are still maintaining it [today].
Yet, from time to time, the Israeli terrorism throws off its reins and exploits a spurious pretext or some event to use violence against the Palestinian people, as is happening today; Israel's military and security establishments have carried out an extensive wave of arrests of PA Parliament (Legislative Council) members, former ministers and other citizens; they have raided and besieged the Palestinian public... under the pretext of searching for their three settlers (i.e., the three kidnapped boys are students aged 16, 16, and 19), who have been missing since Thursday.
The policy of collective punishment Israel implements against defenseless citizens contradicts international law and the four Geneva Conventions. In addition, it adds fuel to the flames of the rage of the Palestinian public, systematically pushing the situation towards an abyss, in order to:

1. shuffle the cards in the Palestinian-Israeli path (i.e., relationship);
2. lay the blame for the chain of events and developments on the Palestinian leadership;
3. extinguish any glimmer of hope for a political settlement;
4. attempt to break out of their international isolation, which is expanding;
5. discredit the Palestinian national reconciliation and lay the responsibility for the fate of its [Israel's] three settlers on the international bodies that support it [the national Fatah-Hamas reconciliation].

Nonetheless, the international, regional and local forces do not rule out the scenario that Israel itself is behind the 'kidnapping,' for the purpose of achieving the above-mentioned goals."
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Note: On June 12, 2014, Israeli teens Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, 16, were kidnapped while hitchhiking in the West Bank. 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.

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