Just as Israel went into Shabbat the news was released that three kids, trying to catch a lift on their way home from college, were missing. The Prime Minister confirmed tonight that they have been kidnapped by terrorists. A massive search is gripping Judea looking for them.
Behind the scenes many of us had heard swirling rumours about this but the news was mostly kept quiet until the IDF Spokesperson broke the news.
The mainstream (Israeli) sources have the up to the minute details, you can check them out of that but here’s the social media story.
Soon after the information was released it was known that one of the boys is a US Citizen. When I heard this I sent a tweet to @BarakObama (doesn’t hurt to try):
I also decided to ask Matt Lee (the excellent AP Diplomatic correspondent) if he or anyone else would be asking in an official press conference):
He answered me in the affirmative (and yes, Mari Harf at the State Department did have a bland statement to make).
My tweet to Obama contained the hash tag #BringBackOurBoys. I did this deliberately to ape the famous hashtag #BringBackOurGirls that followed the kidnapping of girls in Nigeria leading to a famous picture of Michelle Obama holding up the hashtag on a sign.
I didn’t know at the time, but a few minutes earlier Michael Dickson of StandWithUs also used the tag.
Well it’s now become the Twitter and Facebook hashtag for support. The IDF Spokesperson is adding it to everything, a Facebook group is growing very quickly (and was even temporarily shut down because of attacks from Israel haters). Head there and take a look at all the pictures people are sending in.
Israellycool says #BringBackOurBoys and we hope the IDF is free to do it’s job and the evil people who have perpetrated this act get exactly what they deserve as soon as possible.
