The Palestinian Authority opened up the propaganda taps Wednesday with charges that Israel and the “occupation forces” are “torturing” Arab children.

The allegations were reported several hours before U.S. Secretary of State John Kelley landed in Israel. He previously has incited Arab violence by warning Israel that if it does not do as he says, it might face a new intifada.

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“The international community is urgently required to act against Israel and punish the occupation state for violating international laws in the first instance, and in the second to save arrested Palestinian children who are under Israeli torture,” PA Minister of Detainees’ Affairs Zeyad Abu Ain told GulfNews.com.

“Meetings have been organized between European Union ambassadors and Palestinian children released from Israeli prisons and detention centers where the children told the ambassadors their torture stories,” he added. “We have solid and undisputed proof of violations by the Israeli occupation against Palestinian children and the Israelis cannot deny this occurs,” he stressed.

It is true that Israel arrests minors, Jews and Arabs alike. That is because the minors commit acts of violence, like Arabs throwing rocks at Jews and Jews throwing rocks at police.

The Palestinian Authority apparently considers that it is “torture” for a child to be in jail. It certainly is not pleasant, nor is it pleasant to be on the receiving end of a rock.

But Israeli jails really are not jails. The Gulf News report called them “iron cages.”

And the children really are patriots, the Palestinian Authority minister said. “Those patriotic children are usually sent to unauthorized detention centers in the spreading colonies in the West Bank,” the official told Gulf News. “The children are not kept in official detention centers or prisons so the occupation forces can treat them in their own way.”

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Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.