Palestinians Say Israel Killed Boys Catching Birds, So They Want to Bomb Tel Aviv - Ryan Jones ISRAEL TODAY

Palestinians Say Israel Killed Boys Catching Birds, So They Want to Bomb Tel Aviv

Monday, October 29, 2018 |  Ryan Jones  ISRAEL TODAY

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Palestinians

This is why the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is unlikely to come to an end, regardless of how lucrative US President Donald Trump's "Deal of the Century" turns out to be.

All it takes is one little rumor, no matter how ludicrous or easily debunked, to set off another major round of violence.

That's what is currently happening in the Gaza Strip, where the news of the day is that Israeli soldiers callously shot and killed three Palestinian Arab children who were innocently setting traps to catch birds to feed their starving families.

That sounds absolutely horrible. No doubt any one of us would demand justice, if not vengeance, following such an atrocity. A mass demonstration in Gaza City called for as much when it urged Hamas and the other terror groups operating out of the coastal enclave to "bomb Tel Aviv." And, as the recent GRAD missile strike on Beersheva demonstrated, Hamas has the weaponry to fulfill the people's wish.

The only problem is that the story fueling this fire is about as reliable as the tale of a young girl named Goldilocks and her unfortunate encounter with a family of bears.

The reality is that the three Palestinian "children" were in fact young men, no doubt doing the bidding of older men, and while they were setting traps, they weren't for birds. Unless "birds" is some hip new slang for "Israeli soldiers." In that case, yes, they were setting traps for birds.

For those of us who appreciate a more direct form of expression, the three Palestinians in question were shot after Israeli soldier discovered them planting explosives along the Gaza security fence. The reason for doing so? To kill Israeli soldiers. So, yeah, basically this was an act of self defense.

And that's how we got to a mob chanting "The people want to bomb Tel Aviv!"

So long as such willful ignorance rules the emotions of those involved in this conflict, no deal, regardless of its prominence of name, is going to bring genuine peace.

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