"Cursed be he who says, 'Avenge!' " 
—Chaim Bialik, from "On The Slaughter"

From the moment three Israeli teens were reported missing last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country's military-intelligence apparatus suppressed the flow of information to the general public. Through a toxic blend of propaganda, subterfuge and incitement, they inflamed a precarious situation, manipulating Israelis into supporting their agenda until they made an utterly avoidable nightmare inevitable.

Israeli police, intelligence officials and Netanyahu knew within hours of the kidnapping and murder of the three teens that they had been killed. And they knew who the prime suspects were less than a day after the kidnapping was reported.