The kidnapped Israelis must be returned, but not at any price

It has emerged that Hamas has kidnapped two Israelis who deliberately crossed the border from Israel for unknown reasons. One is a beduin and one is an Ethiopian Jew who is said to have psychological problems.

We hope that both of these men will be returned as soon as possible, but hopefully not after Israel paying a Gilad Shalit style ransom for them. That ransom in terms of over a thousands Arab Jew killers only happened because the family of Shalit mounted an excellent media campaign that tugged at the heart strings of Israelis.

It was obvious at the time that the price paid for freeing Shalit would be dead Israelis in new terror campaigns afterwards, and that has come true. Many of those freed have been conducting terror operations from within Israel. Outside of Israel Hamas has its headquarters now in Turkey a NATO memnber and is directing terror against Israel from there.

The European Union and  USA is quiet about Hamas organising terror from Turkey yet is never lost for words when Israel builds a home for the indigenous Jews of Judea and Samaria.

It is sad that one of the brothers of Avraham Mengistu has used the racism card against Israel already. Thankfully the rest of Avraham's family have not stooped to such a disgraceful level.

Netanyahu must not give in to moral blackmail whilst acting to return these unfortunates home.

The first action on the part of the government should be to re-arrest as many of the terrorists freed in exchange for Shalit and make it clear that they will remain in prison until the two hostages are returned to Israel.

It should also be made clear that there will be no more deals, only that every time Israel's loyal citizens are kidnapped the price will be the re-arrest of those previously freed.

Democracies must take the gloves off in this merciless war being waged against them by Islamic terrorists.

Israel must lead the way, not by sacrificing its soldiers and citizens in ever more asinine ways to spare the enemie's human shields but in the robustness of its response to attacks.

Let us hope this new government will show a new mettle in dealing with the terror entities surrounding it.

Israel's Ethiopian Jews refuse to adopt victimhood politics and violence

The Ethiopian community in Israel is to be congratulated for refusing yesterday to take the example of many in the community of black people in the United States, where 30% of black males have at one time or another been in prison (1 in 12 presently), and where throughout a lifetime, a black male has a 1 in 21 chance of dying violently.

Israel is not the USA with Black people in Israel not having the same sorry history as Black people in the USA. Ethiopian Jews were not brought to Israel as slaves, but as free men and women in order to fulfill their zionist aspirations, to save their lives. They were brought out of love and not hatred or of any intention to humiliate or discriminate against them. 

Israel put many of its citizens in harms way by sending its armed forces and civilians into extremely anti-Israel Sudan and Ethiopia in order to rescue the Ethiopian Jews from starvation that killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Every society has its problems and Israel is not an exception, but racism has not, and will not define the relations between black and white communities as it has done in Europe and the USA. Ethiopian Jews were not rescued and brought to Israel in order to be discriminated against and those who are undoubtedly suffering now and have not yet succeeded in society must realise that. They need help so that they too can succeed in Israel. Much is done by the State within its limited budget and with the bringing of this issue to the fore, much more will hopefully happen to raise this community up.

Israel is not such a country in decline and Ethiopian Jews are also not seldom successful in Israel, and will undoubtedly continue to succeed. There are senior officers in the IDF, scientists and doctors among the community. For example the head of the IDF intervention team in Nepal was an Ethiopian Jewish doctor Dr. Avi Yitzchak. All is not doom and gloom.

Ethiopian Jews at yesterday's demonstration cleaerly showed that the violence seen in Baltimore and Ferguson is not the example they want to follow. Looting and destruction is the hallmark of a society in decline and offers no hope for those who use it. Ethiopian Jews are protesting for their future success, not in order to destroy the efforts of those who have already succeeded before them.

The promotion of victimhood and violence is alien to Israel, and thankfully even the Ethiopian demonstrators who split off from the peaceful demonstration to seek confrontation were open to reason and eventually returned to demonstrate peacefully.

The destructive Malcolm X / Black Panther style promotion of victimhood and fomenting of hatred is all to easy. It is a reverse racism, as ugly as the phenomenon it purports to condemn, and Israel last night rejected it. Thankfully the Ethiopian Jews of Israel will not be seduced by hate and destruction.

Enemies of Jews have never worried about whether that Jew is black or white, Sephardi or Ashkenazi. Being a Jew suffices, and Israel's wise leaders realise that, and condemned the police who sparked off the demonstrations.

The rabbis talked of Sinat Chinam (Unjustified/unreasonable/unreasoning hatreds and the destruction of the Temple and warned against those who are determined to feed off a cynical nursing of a sense of victimhood.

Ethiopian Jews refuse to be used as the vanguard in a new attempt to split the Jewish nation apart.

They did not come to Israel in order to be instrumental in its demise, but to build it along with Sephardi and Asheknazi Jews who returned home at an earlier date.

The EU and George Tsoros sponsored anarchists in Israel surely suffered a great defeat last night. As with the cost of living protests a couple of years ago, Israel's enemies fish in troubled waters but Israel is stronger and its people will not be corralled into the self-destructive behaviour seen abroad that Israel's enemies would have it do.