Let me make this clear: the kidnapping and murdering of the Israelian boys is a terrible act for which there is no excuse. I have to make this statement very strongly at the beginning of this blog, because otherwise I shall be accused of partiality, anti-semitism or worse. Hate mail is quickly send and received these days. Therefore I repeat, my opinion is:

the kidnapping and murdering of the Israelian boys is a terrible act for which there is no excuse. I repeat:

the kidnapping and murdering of the Israelian boys is a terrible act for which there is no excuse.

Having said this I’d like to make a few comments. First: in May two Palestinian boys were killed in Ramallah by the Israelian army, for no acceptabele reason. To be honest, that totally escaped me, because the media hardly mentioned it, and it caused no commotion at all. No comments from any official, not from our own minister of foreign affairs.

Secondly, if the parents of the kidnapped boys had chosen to stay in Israel, instead of choosing to live in an illegal colony on the West Bank, their sons would have been still alive. I wonder how one can live with this responsibility. They had a choice where to live, which the Palestinian boys had not. Those boys were living in their own country, whereas the colonists were not.

Furthermore I think the Israelian reaction is totally out of proportion. In the military campaign of trying to find the perpetrators 400 people were arrested, 6 persons were killed (among who boys of the same age as the victims), two houses (of the families of the suspects) were destroyed and their furniture was annihilated. Of course without any form of legal procedure. Then, a Palestinian boy was murdered and incinerated (not by the authorities though). No wonder the Palestinian people revolted. Two things in this process are bewildering me.

One, that after this extreme reaction of revenge the Israelian government still is considering more measurements of vengeance. Secondly, that no condemnation of the disproportionate Israelian reaction is heard. By the Palestinians, yes, but not by the leaders of the world (Obama, the secretary of the UN, EU leaders, our own minister of foreign affairs, diplomats, – nobody), not by Western media, not by anyone outside the Arab world. Yes, the killing of the Palestinian boy is condemned, but there is no disapprobation of the Israelian government (aside from within Israel itself). So far for impartiality and objectivity.

In this havoc of violence there is at least one beacon of peace: the Hope Flowers School for Peace Education in Bethlehem. They try to go on under these very difficult circumstances. They are as a rock in the wild stormy sea. If you want to support them, especially now, then you can help them financially. Many traumatized children shall need their help in the near future. Their crowd funding action is going for just another 8 days: https://onepercentclub.com/nl/#!/projects/more-meals-for-the-hope-flower-school, and their target is not yet reached.