Find Excuses for Behavior That Seems Unkind

“In justice you shall judge your neighbor.”  Leviticus 19:15.  

Give your neighbor the benefit of the doubt.  Telushkin quotes a rabbi who meets with a group on a weekly basis to discuss slights they have suffered since the previous meeting - and who come up with reasons that people might not have realized their actions seemed slighting.

Can we push this up to the level of thinking about the kidnappers of the three Israeli teenagers?  What would make someone kidnap and kill someone else?  They looked at the Israelis as occupiers?  They wanted to send some kind of message?  Their own lives were so devoid of hope that they wanted to spread a sense of nihilism into the community?  Do any of these reasons justify the kidnapping and killing of three young men - collateral damage?  Could the presence of a yeshivah in Hebron so outrage certain members of the Hebron community that they felt justified in kidnapping and killing three random young men?  

Where does this end?  And at what point does someone justifiably say, “This and no more.”  When does judge your neighbor in justice become playing the patsy?