Paul Calvert spoke with Gidon Ariel, a Jewish man from the Hebron area, about the kidnappings of three young boys

Gidon Ariel

Three religious students were kidnapped earlier this month in Israel after they left their Jewish seminaries and hitched a ride home in the occupied Palestinian territory. The Israeli prime minister has accused the Islamic militant group Hamas of being behind the kidnapping and Israeli troops have responded strongly. Paul Calvert spoke with Gidon Ariel, a Jewish man from the Hebron area, about the kidnappings.

Paul: Gidon, we have heard about the three youths that have been kidnapped, how were they kidnapped?

Gidon: Nobody really knows of course. If we knew we might be able to find them, but chances are they were waiting either for a bus or a ride home and they were abducted by the Hamas Palestinian terrorists who grabbed them into their car. They didn't tell anybody for days and even till today, they are not explaining. That's why the Israeli army is doing a man hunt all over Hebron and other Palestinian cities in the area.

Paul: There was talk that they were hitchhiking, is hitchhiking common here?

Gidon: Hitchhiking has been very common in Israel because we are all one big family; but unfortunately because of the Arab terrorism it has become less and less common. When I went into the army about 30 years ago, that was the main mode of transportation for soldiers. Today since various attempts and successes of kidnapping soldiers through hitchhiking, it has become absolutely prohibited for soldiers to hitchhike. People who aren't in the army and have no way of getting home, then this is the way that everybody does it.

Paul: This is a very big news story here in Israel, who does Israel believe is responsible for this kidnapping?

Gidon: It's not a question of belief; Israel knows that the Hamas terrorist organisation is responsible for these kidnappings. Tragically since the Fatah political party decided to choose Hamas over peace negotiations with Israel we have no choice but to blame the Palestinian Authority as well.

Three kidnapped boys

Paul: Can the Palestinian Authority do more to deal with this?

Gidon: I think one thing that the Palestinian Authority can do is to not post pro-abduction and kidnapping caricatures in their official newspapers. We are not talking about armed soldiers, but we are talking about 16 year-old boys who just want to go home. We are not talking about boys who are throwing stones or anything like that, these were just simply boys who are studying peacefully in their high school. They just want to get home with peace and so this is the main reason why we must clearly define what terror is; in everybody's book this has to be called simply and purely terror.

Paul: Gilad Shalit was the Israeli soldier who was taken and released with the prisoner swap deal. Many Palestinian prisoners were released through that. Do you think that encouraged kidnapping?

Gidon: That was simply an opportunity to get our boy back, because he was everyone's son. It was a terrible decision to make to release over 1,000 terrorists for one kidnapped person and this is still an issue that people are very much divided about in Israel. I for one would certainly not want to be in the place of Gilad Shalit or his family, but the idea of releasing terrorists, some of them with blood on their hands, which means they were actually involved in murderous terror attacks, is terrible. We know from the past many of these terrorists will go back to terror and for all we know the terrorists who did the recent abduction were released in the Gilad Shalit case. We hope that this will not be a precedent. This time the people who were kidnapped were from families of more right wing Israelis, so there will be a lot less pressure on the Israeli Government to trade with the terrorist Hamas organisation than there was with the Gilad Shalit family. Ultimately Gilad Shalit's father ran for the Knesset on the left wing Labour party list, but the bottom line is, today we are still in the midst of the man hunt and the Israeli army believes that the boys are located somewhere in the Hebron area together with their abductors and we are not going to stop, I am speaking as an Israeli and 'we' meaning the Israeli Government and the Israeli Army, we are not going to stop until we bring our boys home.

In some ways these children being kidnapped is worse than the Gilad Shalit kidnapping, because Gilad Shalit was an Israeli soldier. He had been trained, so he would know the risks that he had going into the army, but these are just kids and two of them are just 16 years-old.

I don't remember the last number, whether it's 1,000 or if it is over 2,000 Israelis have been killed over the past 20 years or so because of Arab terror and I wouldn't want to wish any terror attack be it an abduction, a murder, or a bomb that leaves somebody limbless. It's very difficult for me to understand how people can see this as a morally equivalent situation. We have on the one hand the Palestinians who want a State so therefore they are also at war and therefore these are acts of war. These are not acts of war. This is terror and with terror you have to fight with an iron fist. Anybody who loves justice and peace must pray for the return of these three young men safely home.

Paul: How has Israel responded? Is Hebron in lockdown at the moment for the Palestinians?