Bodies of three kidnapped teens found | The Times of Israel  ‘Bodies of Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel, who were kidnapped on June 12, found bound and hurriedly buried in a field north of Hebron; cabinet set to meet in emergency session to discuss response’

This news is so bad it almost defies belief. The headlines come as a profound physical shock, the sense of loss palpable even to those of us on the furthest periphery of the scene. The deaths of these three boys shows no rhyme or reason. What were the kidnappers thinking when they killed them? They must have been rank amateurs; no other rational explanation seems possible. There is nothing here that advances the Palestinian cause nor gains for it a sympathetic ear in the court of world opinion. Israel is now in command of the moral high ground and serious international support will be far easier to come by in the days ahead. That is, unless Israel does something equally heinous or even worse still. Then a kind of balance is restored and matters move on just as they have always done.

And, in a way, that may have been part of the problem all along. Balancing out this latest atrocity with another of commensurate status and gravity may very well become a source of some relief to the other side, their position being made far more tenable than it is at the moment and allowing matters then to resume their customary course.

What if the entire situation could be so configured that no balance could ever again be forthcoming, its overall condition never once restored to that deadly equilibrium which has caused so much friction in the past?

This would be a much more fitting tribute to the memory of Eyal, Gilad and Naftali than any of the conventional responses now being readied for action in the Israeli corridors of power.

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