Critical Thinking, Not Blind Vengeance.

Bad news:

JERUSALEM — Israeli searchers on Monday found three bodies believed to be those of the missing Israeli teenagers who were abducted more than two weeks ago in the occupied West Bank, the government of Israel said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency cabinet meeting as calls for a tough response escalated.

“With very heavy sorrow we found three bodies this evening and all the signs point to them being the bodies of our three kidnapped youths,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a senior spokesman for the Israeli military, said the three bodies were found at 5 p.m. “under a pile of rocks in an open field” between Halhul and Beit Kahil, two Palestinian towns near Hebron. The location was an area that thousands of soldiers had been scouring for more than a week.
...

Israeli television reports said the bodies had been discovered by volunteers, guides from the Kfar Etzion Field School. The television accounts said the bodies had been partly covered and appeared to have been dumped hurriedly, probably soon after the abduction.

The three teenagers ... were last seen entering a car at about 10 p.m. on June 12 at a hitchhiking stop in the Gush Etzion settlement block, not far from the area where the bodies were found.

So thousands of soldiers were scouring the area for a week --  the bodies were found near where they were presumed disappeared  -- and no one, not even the dogs, detected a scent from the allegedly shot-to-death, allegedly hastily dumped bodies? *

Hmm...

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* I doubt anyone could bleed the bodies out that quickly, or otherwise chemically treat the bodies so they would not be detected by a trained dog.  Wouldn't a pile of rocks in an open field as a scent collector especially stand out?  My dog would be on that at a distance. With decaying flesh underneath? 

The scientific autopsy results will be helpful, the physical evidence.  I am surprised there is not more anger within that populace at the lack of search results for what has been described as the largest incursion into the West Bank in a decade, trying to find the three.  Were too many resources focused on getting Hamas elsewhere -- using the opportunity to re-map and eliminate potential threats in residential areas -- that might have been focused closer to the scene of the abduction and crime?

I would hope Israeli authorities would urge patience in tying the alleged suspects into the murders with such evidence, especially before carrying out any potential collective punishment against the families of the two suspects.

In Hebron, Israeli soldiers returned Monday night to the home of Israel’s two prime suspects in the kidnapping, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha. As word spread that the military might demolish the homes, about 100 Palestinians gathered, some throwing stones at the soldiers, who fired at least six tear-gas canisters to disperse the crowd and blocked the roads around the two houses.

 I hope our President Obama, if he hasn't placed the conciliatory call to Prime Minister Netanyahu yet --- urges him to  demonstrate calm and reason in responding to the crime.