On June 12, 2014 three Israeli teens hitchhiked their way home to Talmon, an illegal settlement, they were kidnapped in the West Bank near Hebron. The boys were found dead on Monday. This kidnapping and murder is extremely unfortunate and my condolences go out to the families of the boys. Children are the first victims of hostilities and as we have seen time and again both sides are guilty of robbing children in their innocence, Israel has done so more actively so but I’ll get into that in a moment.

Let me begin with the situation at hand, three Israeli teens were kidnapped, and they can be named in one sentence. If I were to name all of the Palestinian children who have been kidnapped by Israel throughout history you’d be reading this article for a couple of hours. In an attempt to find the boys, Israeli forces did everything in their power to rescue them. As of Thursday, Israel has unlawfully kidnapped 600+ Palestinians, raising the number of Palestinian currently in Israeli prisons to over 255 – which, under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is illegal. They have unjustly raided and assaulted over thousands of households, which led to the death of an elderly woman. They have also killed 13 other Palestinians including a 7-year old, a 15-year-old, and a mentally ill man. Along with many other human rights violations, but this is just how Israel conducts standard searches.

In response to the death of the boys, Israel has carried out 34 airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and promoted ‘revenge attacks’ which has launched Israeli mobs on a spree to lynch Palestinians. These mobs have been responsible for attack Arabs working in McDonalds, standing in parking lots, and ultimately kidnapped and killed a 16-year-old boy from the West Bank. Because murder justifies more murder.

Why isn’t any of this headline news? Well last time I checked the majority of news and media outlets are still owned by big time Zionists, the same ones that pour money into promoting Israeli propaganda on college campuses and the media industry. The Palestinian perspective is almost always misrepresented, disregarded or painted minimal as to portray Israel as the victim in headlines and eradicate their presence.

America’s will come out and condemn both Israel and Palestine for barbaric behavior and lecture them on peace. Allow me to clarify; there is a massive difference between verbally condemning Israel and actually taking actions to penalize Israel. The international community has periodically gone to the UN with human rights violations committed by Israel on the daily. Needless to say, Israel hasn’t faced any real consequences. Despite any offenses Israel may carry out, they will still get their annual direct foreign allowance of $3 billion, courtesy of American taxpayers. So it’s pretty hard to say that Israel is being condemned simply because headlines aren’t screaming, “poor Israel!”

Pro-Israelis will point out how scary it is being the only “democracy” surrounded by other barbaric Arab nations. Not a particularly well known fact about Israel is when they’re not busy oppressing Palestinians they find time to oppress others, such as African immigrants for “not being Jewish enough.” Most notably I’d like to draw your attention to a recent scandal in which Israel conducted a mass sterilization of migrant African women without their knowledge.

Before I begin the most heated subject of all I’d like to be clear that I do not condone any type of violence, from either side. In 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a 3 week non-stop attack on the Gaza Strip and in which Israel was as so kind as to drop leaflets on the region to warn citizens that they were going to be attacked. Keep in mind that the Gaza Strip is a bit smaller than Seattle with more than twice its population, so even if citizens wanted to hide where the hell were they going to go? Schools, hospitals, religious places of worship, they were all targets at the time, Israel claiming that Hamas had control of the institutions. Israel even managed to bomb the UN headquarters. But back to rockets – Hamas has launched rockets, homemade rockets that rarely hit their target. You could say Israel was a bit more equipped, throughout Cast Lead; they had dropped white phosphorus bombs on Gaza’s residents. White phosphorus is a chemical weapon, which is (once again) illegal under international law. Were they condemned? No but you can imagine the mothers of the children that were burned alive aren’t really putting much faith in pointless ‘peace negotiations’.

I can’t help but wonder if Israelis would be as terrified for their safety if she were living as a Palestinians. It may not be so tangible but let me give you a little glimpse inside the current living conditions of Palestinians. Firstly, you don’t live in your own home because it was stolen; foreigners literally barged into your home and at gunpoint you were told to take your family and get the eff out. The men in your family including young boys, like the ones that were kidnapped, have been, are in, or will be imprisoned despite no evidence to even accuse them of crimes. You live by candlelight because the occupying power shuts off electricity when they’re bored. Your water supply is contaminated and scarce. If you’re not home by the curfew imposed by the occupier you could get hit by a sniper. You have to go through checkpoints to go 5 miles away where you are subject to being stripped, beaten and humiliated, just so you can get to work – and after hours of waiting they may not even let you pass. I’m just skimming the surface but I think you get the idea; essentially you are prisoner in your own country.

Three teen boys kidnapped and murdered, this is the everyday Palestinian reality.