When an Israeli Jew Kills: How the Three Jewish and One Muslim Child Murders Are Different

On June 12 three Jewish Israeli boys were kidnapped; Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Frenkel. Naftali had dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship. Their terrorist kidnappers killed them almost immediately. Sometime during the early morning hours of July2 Mohammed Abu Khdeir a Palestinian Muslim boy was kidnapped and burned alive by terrorists. All four of these murdered children were perpetrated by animals,  less than human creatures who should spend the rest of their life in horrible prisons.

Immediately after the three Jewish boys were reported missing, Hamas and Fatah websites urged shopkeepers in the area not to cooperate with the authorities by turning over surveillance tapes. The day the Arab boy was kidnapped Israeli authorities were looking at the surveillance tapes from local shopkeepers to help find the murderers.

On June 15, three days after the Jewish boys were kidnapped, the U.S. State Dept. finally issued a statement:

“The United States strongly condemns the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers and calls for their immediate release. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families. We hope for their quick and safe return home. We continue to offer our full support for Israel in its search for the missing teens, and we have encouraged full cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian security services. We understand that cooperation is ongoing.”

On July 2 the day the kidnapping and murder of the Palestinian boy was discovered, the State Department condemned the killing in words much stronger than it used for the three Jews:

“condemns in the strongest possible terms the despicable and senseless abduction and murder" "It is sickening" "There are no words to convey adequately our condolences to the Palestinian people.”

That same day Secretary of State Kerry rushed to conclusions in a statement suggesting that the murder was motivated by revenge for the three killed Israeli boys saying, “Those who undertake acts of vengeance only destabilize an already explosive and emotional situation." He called Prime Minister Netanyahu to make sure Israel intended to track down the murderer of the Arab boy, despite the fact Prime Minster Netanyahu had already condemned the murder calling it reprehensible and ordered the police to work as quickly as possible to find the perpetrators and motives.

A 15-year-old American cousin of the murdered  Mohammed Abu Khdeir, has said that he was brutally beaten by Israeli police on Friday. That case is being investigated. Twice during the weekend the U.S. State Department called for a thorough inquiry into the treatment. The same State Department did not make similar statements for American citizen Naftali Frenkel.

The EU condemned the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir the day his kidnapping and murder was discovered. The EU waited five days to condemn the kidnapping of the three Jewish boys.

The mainstream media largely ignored the kidnapping of the three Israeli children and when they did report it, they weren’t children, or boys, or even teens—they were teenaged settlers. Suggesting that because they may have lived on the “wrong:” side of the green line they were less than human. The kidnapping of the Muslim boy was reported by the media immediately.

Palestinian websites and blogs celebrated the kidnapping of the three boys, they united on a slogan calling the kidnapped boys the Three Shalits (referencing Gilad Shalit who was kidnapped and held by terrorists. Pictures of Palestinian Children holding up three fingers in celebration of the three kidnapped Israelis were posted on the official Hamas and Fatah websites.

Israeli authorities did not celebrate kidnapping and murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir. No celebrations were posted on official Israeli websites, and government officials spoke only words of horror at the act.

Four horrible murders of children, but judging by the reaction much of the world including Obama’s State Department the Jewish children’s deaths were less worthy of horror than the Muslim death. But not to Israel, in the Jewish State the deaths of all four children were treated with horror.

The media reported the killings as if they were the same. The death of Mohammed Abu Khdeir was just a heinous as the deaths of Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Frenkel, but it was not the same.

Allow me to explain how the Jewish and Arab deaths are different:

Israel will never demand that the killers of the Muslim Boy be traded for or released as part of a deal to restart negotiations. Nor will Israeli soldiers kidnap a Palestinian so they can hold him hostage until the murderers of Mohammed Abu Khdeir are released. Whoever they are, be they be Jew or Arab the killers of the 16 year old Arab boy will serve their sentences in prison. History tells us that the Palestinian Authority will most certainly demand the release of, or attempt to kidnap other Israelis as hostages to trade for whoever killed the three Jewish boys.

Whoever killed the three Israeli boys will get a pension from the Palestinian Authority. If they are in jail or killed their families will get the money.

The PA leadership has confirmed that they sent Western donor nations' money to pay terrorists and their families. PA government spokesman Ehab Bessaiso explained three weeks ago that instead of funding the salaries via "the Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs" under the PA they will fund them through "the Authority of Prisoners' Affairs" under the PLO to "provide political and legal cover" and "eliminate arguments ... that [foreign] aid money [to the PA] is going to the prisoners."

Once captured the terrorists who abducted and murdered the three Israeli boys will start receiving a salary. Israel will never pay pensions with the killers of the Arab boys, they will be treated like the child murderers they are.

Prime Minister Netanyhu sent his condolences to the Abu Khudair family saying:

I pledge that the perpetrators of this horrific crime, which must be resolutely condemned in the most forceful language. I pledge that the perpetrators of this horrific crime will face the full weight of the law. I know that in our society, the society of Israel, there is no place for such murderers. And that’s the difference between us and our neighbors. They consider murderers to be heroes. They name public squares after them. We don’t. We condemn them and we put them on trial and we’ll put them in prison.”

One person involved in the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli boys has been captured. The remaining murderers have hid out in the Palestinian territories for 3 weeks because they have a base of support, an organization people to keep their secret, feed them, etc., and the Palestinian Authority have done little to try and find them. Four days after the murder of the Arab boy six people were arrested because they had nowhere to hide. The Jewish community does not accept child murderers.

You see there is no moral equivalence between the two sets of murder. The murderers of the Jewish boys will be celebrated as heroes, will receive a salary using Western aid to the PA, will have public squares named after them, and as long as they are hiding they will be protected by the Palestinian community.The murderers of the Arab boy will be treated like the child killers they are but no one outside of the Jewish community recognizes the difference.

And that is just the start this kidnapping highlights the subtle anti-Semitism that permeates throughout the State Department and the rest of the Western world. Jewish deaths are ignored, hundreds of rockets sent into civilian neighborhoods are treated the same as Israeli attacks on the rocket bases to stem their tide, children are described as “settlers” not murdered kids.

When Palestinians justify murder of Jews in the name of their grievances it acceptable to western nations including our own, they receiving little if any condemnation. Israel never justifies the death of children theirs or anyone else’s.

Its time for Jews across the world to stand up and scream they’re fed up with a world that has indulged anti-Semitism for thousands of years. This scapegoating of Israel and Israel alone is nothing more than a continuation of the anti-Semitism, be it a BDS movement that targets Israel, or an Obama administration reluctant to criticize Palestinians for kidnapping three Jews, and a world that find’s moral equivalencies that do not exist.


Jewish bloggers are signing a joint letter of condemnation on the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir of Shuafat. I have added my name and support to the effort. You can read the letter see the signatories, and add your own name by clicking here.