https://www.jns.org/opinion/theyre-terrorists-not-security-prisoners/
How do news outlets love to portray the recent “great escape” from Israel’s Gilboa Prison? Let us count the ways.
The first is to refer to the six Palestinian terrorists who plotted and carried out the most egregious jailbreak in Israel’s history as “security prisoners.”
The second is to downplay the rap sheets of the four who were apprehended and the remaining two fugitives still on the loose.
The third is to take a pause from the above to blame Israel for the lax conditions that enabled the men to spend months digging the tunnel—from the floor of the shower cubicle in their cell—through which they fled from behind bars. Oh, and, of course, for failing to catch them as soon as they managed to pull off the daring stunt.
It’s a neat trick. Simultaneously sanitizing the terrorists’ blood-stained hands and magnifying Israel’s role in the debacle is precisely how the Palestinian Authority runs its propaganda campaign: at once denying the Holocaust, for instance, while accusing the Jewish state of emulating the Nazis.
The same ostensible paradox applies to Palestinians’ rioting on behalf of the escapees by hurling fire bombs at the “occupation forces” and threatening terrorist attacks if those of their brethren who were captured, or the ones on the run and those still in jail are treated poorly by the Shin Bet, Israel Police and Israel Prison Service. Meanwhile, inmates left behind are warning that if their cushy conditions are altered one iota, they’ll launch a hunger strike.
Israel’s grown so used to the scenario that all its new leaders can do is pat themselves on the back for playing catch-up and vowing to rectify the dereliction of their predecessors. You know, the Cabinet led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.