Israel Matzav

'Palestinian police' kidnap children from Jerusalem to Ramallah

The headline of this story is bad enough: Suspicion: East Jerusalem cell kidnapped kids to PA. But if you read between the lines of the story (and YNet has now updated it to make it a little more explicit than the original version was - you have the updated version below), it's far worse. The story claims that people who identified themselves as 'Palestinian policemen' kidnapped children from the Shufat 'refugee camp' in 'east' Jerusalem and took them to Ramallah. But they took them to 'Palestinian police' headquarters. And that can only mean that the kidnappers were 'Palestinian police' trained by the United States and under the command of 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen.

Jerusalem Police suspect that a branch of the Palestinian Authority police has been operating illegally in east Jerusalem and has even kidnapped people, including children, into the Palestinian territories. The affair was cleared for publication Monday.

Seven residents of the Shoafat refugee camp were arrested in connection with the affair about two weeks ago, as was a Jewish citizen from a community near Jerusalem, suspected of selling ammunition to the cell.

An investigation revealed that the suspects would identify themselves as PA police officers, as well as threaten and kidnap east Jerusalem residents and take them into questioning at the police headquarters in Ramallah.

...

Last month the cell members allegedly pulled over a Christian Arab woman in north Jerusalem's Beit Hanina neighborhood, took her two children, aged five and nine, out of the vehicle and kidnapped them to Ramallah, where the family of the woman's late husband resides.

The children were transferred to the governor's residence and were later returned to their mother only after she agreed to sign a document securing the family's visitation rights.

I think we can call that last story, "Grandparents' rights, 'Palestinian' style."

But don't expect the Olmert-Barak-Livni- Yishai government to stop the 'Palestinian police' - or any other 'Palestinian' institution - from operating in Jerusalem. That might offend our guest of the day, Clueless Condi.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:36 PM