Sacrificial Lambs, Still.*

An Arab teenager was forced into a car today in East Jerusalem. A badly burned body later was found nearby in a forested area.

A photo of the child, who appears slight and vulnerable and would seem an easy target for Jewish-Israeli terrorists planning to select a victim off the streets, can be found here. Israeli leaders immediately denied the terrorists were working on behalf of the State of Israel but said if collective punishment of the population is necessary to bring the cowardly child-killers to justice, then so be it.

Relatives of the missing youth, Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir, whom various reports said was either 16 or 17, said that he left his father’s kitchenware and appliance store around 3:30 a.m. and was sitting on a wall outside the mosque with some other teenagers waiting for the dawn prayer. Mahmoud Abu Khdeir, the imam of the mosque and a cousin, said the other youths left to get food for the predawn meal that starts the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when a gray Hyundai pulled up at 3:45 a.m. and its occupants forced Muhammad into the car.

“He was kidnapped and killed by the settlers, and the police know that very well,” the imam said. The police said they were reviewing footage from security cameras along the street that the imam said have been used in the past to identify and arrest Palestinian stone-throwers. “They are trying to say that it is an honor killing, and this is categorically not true,” he said.

The Israeli police have announced plans to go door-to-door in East Jerusalem, searching homes and Jewish people who might have been involved in the crime. Anyone who resists will be immediately arrested. Anyone who displays extremist views -- proclaiming Jews superior to Arabs -- will be considered as accomplices to this act of terror.

Israel will remain strong in pursuing peace and justice for all her citizens, it was announced as the mass searches and arrests in East Jerusalem began. This type of tit-for-tat terror and violence will not be tolerated. Anyone suspected of helping to plan, or participate in this terroristic killing of the Arab child will have their family home immediately demolished, their assets impounded and their family members arrested. No trial, no show of evidence.

Simply a show of strength and unity.
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* Know Jesus, Know Peace.