Security police arrested a 16-year-old boy in Yitzhar on Wednesday for throwing rocks at police during the morning, one day after 50 young people went on a rampage, clashed with Border Police and ransacked a post manned by Israeli army reservists.

Leaders across the political spectrum have called for a stop to the violence by extreme settlers, and they want prompt and harsh action taken against troublemakers. Knesset Member Elazar Stern, one of six MKS in Tzipi Livni’s HaTnuah party, said that security forces should treat Yitzhar like any other area that hosts terrorists.

Almost of Yitzhar’s 220 families are firmly against the violence and are frustrated that no one has been able to stop the “price tag” vandalism, a spokeswoman for the Shomron Regional Council told The Jewish Press Tuesday.

President Shimon Peres, who is visiting China said in a statement,  “Since the creation of the State of Israel, the IDF has been the most valuable thing to the Israeli people and we must not let a group of punks harm it.

Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon told Israel Radio that violence by extremist settlers hurts the movement for a strong Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.

Two Israeli Merkava tanks crossed the electronic fence on the northern border and entered Lebanese territory Tuesday, the Lebanese-run National News Agency reported.

The IDF refused to confirm or deny the report, and military spokeswoman explained to The Jewish Press, “We do not comment on reports from foreign media.”

The Lebanese news agency claimed that the two tanks remained in Lebanese territory for approximately two hours before leaving.

It added, “At the same time, Israeli warplanes violated the Lebanese airspace over the central sector, while a reconnaissance aircraft flew over (the southern regions of) Bint Jbeil and Marjeyoun,” according to the same source.

Israeli helicopters reportedly flew over southern Lebanon near the border and fired flares.

The activity could be related to Israeli military drills in the area but also may be a reaction to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s boast on Monday when he took responsibility for a bomb explosion aimed at an IDF patrol last month.

The United States has belatedly awakened to the fact that Tehran is ignoring its policies and moving ahead with nuclear development – as Israel predicted more than a decade ago.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday it would take Iran just two months to produce enough fissile material to produce a nuclear weapon of mass destruction.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made the same statement – in fact he warned it would take less time, unless actions were taken to slow or stop the process – in speeches to the United Nations in 2012 and in 2013.

Over the years, the Iranian nuclear program was hit with numerous mysterious problems that slowed down the process, including destructive viruses, assassinated nuclear physicists, and broken components, all of which were generally blamed on Israel.

Netanyahu’s predecessors in office have also warned the international community that Iran has been marching ahead with its nuclear development program. That has continued apace regardless of United Nations sanctions, diplomatic efforts, negotiations and any other attempts to slow down its drive to create nuclear weaponry.

This time as world powers gathered in Vienna to talk about working on a new agreement to slow down Iranian activity on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions, Kerry was warning American lawmakers that time is up.

The best the world can hope for is to get the Iranians to increase the “breakout” window from two months to half a year, maybe a year.

“I think it’s public knowledge today that we’re operating with a time period for a so-called breakout of about two months. Six months to 12 months is… I’m not saying that’s what we’d settle for, but even that is significantly more [time],” he said, according to Reuters.

Still, Kerry claimed Iran only has enough so far for “just one bomb’s worth, conceivably, of material, but without any necessary capacity to put it in anything, to deliver it, to have any mechanism to do so.”

However, a recent shipment of sophisticated missiles and a missile launcher sent by Iran to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Syria proves that may not be the case. The missiles were of a new, advanced design built with a warhead capable of carrying a much heavier payload – possibly one that could carry nuclear material.

The trucks that were carrying the missiles and the launcher to a Hezbollah base were destroyed in an air strike that left four Hezbollah terrorists.

Israel’s announcement last week of new homes for a southern Jerusalem neighborhood in an area claimed by the Palestinian Authority was the trigger that caused the blow-up in the American-led effort to extend peace talks, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told a Senate committee Tuesday.

He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that after Israel refused to release a fourth batch of terrorists, and then followed that decision with the housing tender in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem, “poof, that was sort of the moment,” Kerry said. “We find ourselves where we are.”

Poof?

Just like that, with a snap of the fingers, after eight months of charades in which the Palestinian Authority and Israel made no headway, in which Israel demanded that Mahmoud Abbas declare that Israel is a Jewish State, in which Abbas continued to negotiate not to negotiate, it went “poof”?

Kerry is the same man who a few days said it’s time for a “reality check.”

After his “poof” puff, Republican Sen John McCain of Arizona told Kerry that concerning the peace process, “It is stopped. Recognize reality!”

But Kerry can’t. When Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said a couple of months that Kerry is “obsessive” with the peace process and is “messianic,” he was 100 percent on the money.

Only a few days ago, after the “poof,” Kerry said he wanted to focus on rescuing his pet nightmare rather than try to blame one side or the other.

“Look, to be clear, over the last 24 hours, there have been unhelpful actions taken on both sides here, and we didn’t think it was a productive time for the secretary to return to the region,” U.S. State Dept. spokeswoman Marie Harf said. “But we’re not playing the blame game.”

That was five days ago.

Since then, Abbas has insisted there is no turning back the clock. He will go through with his requests to join 15 U.N.-related agencies. He justified the action, a violation of the rules of the game Kerry laid down eight months ago, by charging that Israel reneged on a promise to release the fourth batch of terrorists.

The real cause of the ”poof” that blew up Kerry’s Peace Talks Follies was his dangling the release of Jonathan Pollard as bait to get Israel to agree to Abbas’ terms for releasing more terrorists That is what “poofed” the Arabs, who were enraged at the idea of Pollard going free while arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti remains in jail..

The media parrots have forgotten all about that because it is more convenient to blame someone else, and guess who?

It no longer makes any difference what the facts are.

What matters is what they are perceived to be. So you can leave aside the fact that Israel and the Palestinian Authority were unable to agree on which terrorists to release.

And you can leave aside the fact that Israel made it clear, before “poof,” that any limited and unofficial building freeze, as part of a deal to extend peace talks, would not include Jerusalem.

Housing Minister Uri Ariel’s announcement of the new homes was the official stamp of that policy.

Kerry is desperate, and Abbas knows it.

That is why five days after he said he does not want to blame either side, he told the Senate hearing that, yes, the Palestinian Authority took an “unhelpful” action by its latest  ploy for attention in the United Nations, but it was Israel that “poofed” his peace talks.

Spokeswoman Harf tried to cover up her boss’s diplomatic faux pas at the Senate hearing.

“Both sides took ineffective steps. Kerry is not playing the blame game,” she told reporters at the daily media question and answer session.

China gave President Shimon Peres the royal welcome Tuesday, with Chinese President Xi Jinping stating that the Jewish people and the Chinese share a common opposition to militarism and fascism.

Xi added that China wants to continue high-level exchanges with Israel and establish stronger ties and cooperation in the fields of technology, agriculture, medical treatment, environmental protection, energy and education.

“We have full confidence in the China-Israel relationship,” Xi said.

Peres called the Chinese a peace-loving people, an interesting twist on China’s love for its own people whom they kill often kill for the sake of the regime’s own peace.

Peres, of course, also talked about the peace process, which he said China can help advance.

Fifty settlers raided and ransacked on Tuesday an IDF outpost that was manned by six soldiers who were deployed there to defend their attackers and neighbors in the community of Yitzhar, in northern Samaria.

An IDF spokesman told The Jewish Press that the soldiers did not suffer any injuries, contrary to a report in Ynet that said two soldiers were “lightly injured.”

The attackers raided the military post in revenge for the destruction of four houses by soldiers and police earlier in the day. Violent youth demonstrated their belief in the Land of Israel by throwing stones at the soldiers and police, injuring at least two of them. The demolitions, not by coincidence, followed the second vandalism of army vehicles in two days.

In the first vandalism attack, a youth age 15 was arrested. He has taken out his anger on the army following last week’s demolition of a home in Yitzhar , four days before it weas to be dedicated.

As usual in Israel, and especially in Judea and Samaria, the facts are not exactly what they seem, but there is one clear and correct conclusion: A bunch of loonies who have settled in several hilltop outposts the past several years have justified their ideology for criminal activity that rabbis and leaders of Judea and Samaria have ignored.

They have done incredible damage to the reputation of the 300,000 settlers, like myself, who live ordinary lives like every other Israeli citizen. This bunch of hooligans, suffering from ADD, XYZ, PTS and perhaps LSD, have armed the anti-nationalists – liberal Jews, journalists and governments – with all they need to justify terming me and every other person in Judea and Samaria as “illegitimate.”

There are approximately 220 families in Yitzhar Regional Council spokeswoman Esther Allush told The Jewish Press, “They are angry at the perpetrators of the violence and are frustrated.”

She harshly criticized the military for the demolition of the houses but emphasized there is no justification for violence, whether against Arabs or Israeli soldiers.

The demolitions usually originate with the Defense Ministry and almost always are for political reasons, but that is a subject in and by itself.

Violence by “hilltop youth” has been tolerated for years by leaders of Judea and Samaria and by their rabbis. They almost never encourage it, but they do nothing to stop it. In most cases, they know who the criminals are.

One official in a community in Judea and Samaria, who would be fired on the spot if his name were used, told The Jewish Press, “The vandals are criminals who act in the name of ideology. Leaders of Yesha (The Council of Jewish Communities of Judea and Samaria) have a problem dealing with them.”

Why can’t someone simply stop providing them with water and electricity? Why don’t the rabbis take them to a Rabbinic Court? Why don’t the regional councils simply order them to get off the land?

The official’s answers to these questions were the same as received by other officials interviewed in the past by The Jewish Press.

In most cases, they knew who these demented imbeciles are. One rabbi told me he really doesn’t believe they are criminals and that the stories in the media are exaggerated. He added, “Every inch of land where they settle is holy and therefore the youth should be praised. The good rabbi is living day and night in the Talmud, but the hilltop youth are not. They are living in a movie, and it is getting uglier every day.

Another rabbi said that only a handful of people are involved.

That was a convenient excuse and may have been true five years ago. It no longer is valid. These young and budding criminals interpret the lack of action against them as a wink and a nod to do was they please, all in the name of God.

Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a decision by the Israel Defense Forces to bar a Palestinian runner from Gaza from participating in a marathon in Bethlehem but nevertheless recommended that he be allowed to participate in the race.

Olympian Nader Masri, 34, had asked Israel’s military for permission to travel to the second Bethlehem marathon that is to be held Friday.

Following a rejection from the military, Masri, with the help of the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, known as Gisha, appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled on Tuesday that it could not overrule a military decision. However, as Israeli courts often do, it injected its own quasi-legal opinion and recommended that Israel consider allowing the runner to leave to participate in the race.

“It is hoped, of course, that in the future the security situation will improve that will allow an easing of such restrictions.” Judge Daphne Barak-Erez wrote in her decision.

Masri has represented the Palestinian Authority in several international competitions, including in Ireland, Portugal, Belgium and Doha. He represented “Palestine” in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Israeli officials at a Jordanian border crossing have arrested an Indian tourist who literally was caught with his pants down, exposing smuggled diamonds and gold worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Customs officials apparently did not have any advance knowledge of the smuggling attempt but noticed that the man showed discomfort from his clothing.

A detailed search turned up gold in the tourist’s toothbrush holder and approximately 150 carats of diamonds in his underwear. The smuggler admitted he intended to sell the diamonds in Israel.