another first? Politics + conspiracy theory

     I have been skeptical about Netanyahu's automatic (seemingly) assertion that Hamas was responsible for kidnapping the three hitchhiking teenagers.  It seemed like the day after they disappeared (even before we knew of the incompetence of the emergency services dispatcher) he was already claiming that.  Netanyahu said on 22 June that there is definite evidence, to be released soon.  It's been nearly two weeks since he said that.  Where is the evidence?  The Israeli army seems almost to have declared war without letting the world know for sure that it is justified.  I can't help wondering whether that was the point all along, and the original abduction was some sort of robbery gone wrong, or something else still terrible but not actionable in the same way.  In that case, it was just the excuse Netanyahu had been waiting for.  I'm not so far out there that I would claim that some sort of secret Israeli army group killed them to set things off.
       I also had to smack myself not to have some blame the victim stuff going on in my head - my first unconsidered thought was "why were they hitchhiking?"  Apparently the answer is that it is a common form of transportation there, with many safe trips every day.  I remember maybe ten years ago, a group conversation in which several people I knew said that they were willing to discuss with their teenage children their own youthful marijuana use and pre-marital sex, but were concealing the amount of hitchhiking, because they were terrified the kids would take that as permission to do so themselves.