Hamas’s Gruesome Use of Slain Israeli Soldiers as Bargaining Chips

For nearly three years, Hamas has refused to return the corpses of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, two IDF soldiers killed in the 2014 Gaza war—one of whom was killed several hours after a cease-fire went into effect. Richard Kemp, Jim Molan, and Arsen Ostrovsky mark the absence of any international outcry over this manipulative use of the dead:

Holding the bodies of soldiers killed in action and refusing their return to their next of kin for burial is a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law. As is using the soldiers’ bodies as bargaining chips, which Hamas continues to do. Only last week, the terrorist group released a morbid video including a song in Hebrew, taunting the families of Goldin and Shaul, again in breach of international law. To this day, almost three years since their abduction, Hamas refuses even to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross access.

That Hamas, a fanatical Iran-funded Islamist terrorist organization, does not abide by even a modicum of international law and basic human decency is beyond dispute. But where is the international outcry? Only last week, the international community was up in arms [against Israel] over a large group of Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike. These, however, were violent murderers convicted of terrorism-related offenses. Moreover, Israel affords these prisoners full rights under international law, including access to ICRC, and returns bodies of terrorists killed attacking Israelis. . . .

Where is the Red Cross? Virtual silence. Where is the UN, under whose auspices the cease-fire during which Hadar Goldin was killed and kidnapped was brokered? Silence. Awaking only occasionally to condemn Israel in New York or Geneva, but turning a blind eye to Palestinian terrorism.

Where are self-professed human-rights groups like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch? Silence again. Perhaps to them the human rights of Jews and Israelis are not worthy? What about Mahmoud Abbas? The Palestinian Authority president claims he wants peace, yet instead seeks to embrace Hamas and glorify those who kill Israelis.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: Hamas, IDF, International Law, Israel & Zionism, Protective Edge, Red Cross

The Intifada Has Been Globalized

Stephen Daisley writes about the slaying of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim:

Yaron and Sarah were murdered in a climate of lies and vilification and hatred. . . . The more institutions participate in this collective madness, the more madness there will be. The more elected officials and NGOs misrepresent the predictable consequences of asymmetric warfare in densely populated territories, where much of the infrastructure of everyday life has a dual civilian/terrorist purpose, the more the citizenries of North America and Europe will come to regard Israelis and Jews as a people who lust unquenchably after blood.

The most intolerant anti-Zionism is becoming a mainstream view, indulged by liberal societies, more concerned with not conflating irrational hatred of Israel with irrational hatred of Jews—as though the distinction between the two is all that well defined anymore.

For years now, and especially after the October 7 massacre, the call has gone up from the pro-Palestinian movement to put Palestine at the heart of Western politics. To pursue the struggle against Zionism in every country, on every platform, and in every setting. To wage worldwide resistance to Israel, not only in Wadi al-Far’a but in Washington, DC. “Globalize the intifada,” they chanted. This is what it looks like.

Read more at Spectator

More about: anti-Semitsm, Gaza War 2023, Terrorism