The confirmation of a reported 10 percent purchase of Israeli-based SodaStream by Starbucks would be another blow, if not a knock-out punch, to the Boycott Israel Movement, commonly known as BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions).

The Israeli Globes business newspaper set the financial markets on fire Wednesday with the report that sent SodaStream’s stock soaring 10 percent, pushing its total market value well over the $1.1 billion mark.

”Sources close to the deal say that an official announcement will be made soon,” according to Globes.

BSD has been uselessly trying to convince people for more than three years not to buy SodaStream’s homemade soda machines because it operates a factory in the Mishor Adumim industrial area of Maaleh Adumim, which the Palestinian Authority claims.

Tel Aviv, Haifa and Netanya also are part of “Palestine” according to official PA maps, but that kind of information interferes with  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s Peace Talk Follies, so let’s ignore it rather than make more trouble for the man.

BDS, like Kerry, has made problems for itself.

The more the Big Lie of the Mahmoud Abbas as a peace partner disintegrates, the more people – even the liberal Jews in the United States – throw in the towel  and go back to fighting for animal rights or against global warming, assuming they have thawed out from this winter’s brutal winter and record snowfalls.

That makes big problems for the BDS, whose leaders are going to stand in the unemployment lines if they cannot convince people that Israel is the reason that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt, totally undemocratic and racist.

The Boycott Movement has been able to win some success by targeting Israeli companies that are big in Israel but tiny in terms of the world economy.

But when companies like the conglomerate Whirlpool, through its subsidiary KitchenAid, start working with SodaStream, things get a but sticky for the anti-Israeli consumers, as reported here earlier this year.

And if Starbucks links up with SodaStream, the BDS folks are going to have to stop sipping Starbucks coffee.

Some Muslims  made fools out of BDS last year by trying to tie Starbucks with false stories that it provides financial support to Israel and even the IDF.

The Arab American News reported last year, Shultz “has championed and funded defense of Israel on U.S. university campuses.”

One of Starbucks’ sins apparently is that CEO Howard Schultz was honored in 1988 by a yeshiva in the Old City in Jerusalem , where the Palestinian Authority wants its capital.

BDS went on the defense and said it does not target individuals, even if they are Zionists. It targets companies that can be tied to Israel’s present in Judea and Samaria.

The boycotters have not let up on SodaStream  and  Jewish Voice for Peace’s Seattle chapter has come up with one of the most obscene collection of lies about Israel, the “Occupation” and SodaStream since the creation of the Palestinian Authority.

It has created the burstthebublle.org website that shows a series of videos that tries to convince people that the idea of Arab-Israeli co-existence at SodaStream’s factory, as promoted by actress Scarlett Johansson, is really just a camouflage. The true purpose of the factory, according to one of the videos, “is not to improve the lives of Palestinians living under occupation but to pad the pockets of an international corporation.”

A company that makes money is immoral, unless it is not run by Jews in Judea and Samaria.

The videos, like the peace process, are actually the best promotion for Israel and Zionism because they are so full of lies that everyone eventually sees the truth, except, of course, for the U.S. the State Dept.

Turkey “will strongly support the reconciliation agreement and offer all humanitarian aid” for the Hamas-Fatah unity government that was announced Wednesday,  Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Gaza’s de facto prime minister Ismail Haniyeh.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan became a fan of Hamas five years ago, at the same time relations with Israel deteriorated. Israel has made amends with Turkey, but the slow return to more normal ties has not affected Erdogan’s support for Hamas. He has stated several time in the past three years he will visit Gaza but has yet to make good on what is seen by Hamas as a promise and by Israel as a threat.

Qatar, whose ruler visited Gaza last year and presented a fat check of hundreds of millions of dollars to Haniyeh. Not surprisingly celebrated the announcement of unity.

Gaza terrorists have launched another mortar attack on southern Israel, the second such attack in less than 24 hours.

IDF Spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner posted a tweet on the Twitter social networking site early Thursday afternoon to alert media to the attack.

“A short while ago, a mortar was fired at IDF during routine activity adjacent to the fence in southern Gaza. No injuries reported,” he wrote. There was no information about whether the mortar left any damage.

Last night Hamas-affiliated terrorists fired two rockets at Israel from the region. The missiles exploded in open areas near the Gaza security fence and in the Sha’ar HaNegev area, which includes the town of Sderot and surrounding farming moshavim and kibbutzim. No one was physically injured, and no property damage was reported.

More than half a million Israelis have fewer than 60 seconds to find shelter after a rocket or mortar is launched from Gaza towards Israel. Most are capable of reaching Israel’s largest southern cities. Some have struck as far as Tel Aviv and Gush Etzion.

Gaza terrorists have fired at least 110 rockets, missiles and mortars at southern Israel in the past four months (since January 1, 2014) alone.

The Palestinian Authority’s duplicity clearly has no limits.

On April 17, it marked “Prisoners Day” by holding rallies throughout the West Bank in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

On the same day, a report published by Palestinians revealed that the Palestinian Authority has arrested hundreds of Palestinians since the beginning of this year. The report pointed out that the Palestinian Authority continues to torture detainees.

“Prisoners Day” is an event that has been taking place for nearly two decades and is intended to express solidarity with the thousands of prisoners who are being held by Israel for security-related offences, including some of the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But as Palestinians were marking “Prisoners Day,” a report released in the Gaza Strip revealed that since the beginning of 2014, this year alone, the Palestinian Authority has arrested 357 Palestinians accused of security/political offenses.

According to the report, prepared by the Hamas-run Ministry of Planning, all 357 detainees belonged to various Palestinian groups in the West Bank, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The report said that 42 of the detainees are university students. During the same period, Palestinian Authority security forces also raided and searched the homes of 60 Palestinians in the West Bank suspected of security/political offenses, the report added.

In March alone, Palestinian Authority security forces raided and searched 42 private and public institutions, businesses, hospitals and charitable organizations in the West Bank, the report continued. It also pointed out that the Palestinian Authority security forces were continuing to torture detainees.

Not surprisingly, the findings of the report were completely ignored by Palestinian Authority officials in their speeches and statements marking “Prisoners Day.”

Of course, the arrests by the Palestinian Authority also continue to be ignored by the mainstream media in the West. This is a story that does not reflect negatively on Israel, so is therefore not considered worthy of being reported to Western audiences.

Instead, Palestinian representatives chose this occasion to heap praise on the Palestinian “heroes” and “fighters” in Israeli prisons, who have made “gigantic sacrifices for their people and cause.”

The PLO’s Hanan Ashrawi called for dispatching international commissions of inquiry to Israeli prisons to look into Israeli “violations” against the Palestinian inmates. She also went as far as accusing Israel of “war crimes” because of its “mistreatment” of the prisoners.

Most of the Palestinian officials told the crowds at the West Bank rallies that the prisoners are the true heroes of the Palestinians and that there would never be peace with Israel as long as one Palestinian remained in Israeli prison.

As the Palestinian Minister for Prisoners Affairs, Issa Qaraqi, put it, “There will be no agreement or peace or an extension of the [peace] talks until the gates of the prisons are opened and our prisoners are set free.”

So while the Palestinian Authority is calling on the international community to punish Israel for imprisoning Palestinians, its own security forces continue to hold hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians in prison, some tortured, some without trial. Yet, the Palestinian Authority does not see its actions as a violation of human rights and international law.

It is all right for Palestinians to detain and torture a fellow Palestinian. But apparently it is not all right for Israel to arrest and imprison anyone who harms its security or murders its citizens.

Further evidence of the Palestinian Authority’s double-talk on the issue of prisoners and terrorism was provided one day before Palestinians marked “Prisoners Day.”

At a meeting with Israeli MKs [Members of Knesset, Israel's parliament] in Ramallah, Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, announced that the Palestinian Authority was “completely opposed to violence by any party.”

The Israeli MKs took Abu Rudaineh’s remark as a straight and clear “condemnation” of a shooting attack that killed an Israeli police officer near Hebron in the West Bank two days earlier. Needless to say, the Palestinian spokesman had made no specific reference to the shooting attack.

Still, for the Israeli MKs, this was sufficient evidence that the Palestinian Authority is opposed to terror attacks on Israelis and is therefore a reliable “peace partner.”

The following day, however, the rallies and speeches marking “Prisoners Day” provided further evidence that the Palestinian Authority continues to glorify Palestinians who launch terrorist attacks against Israel.

The Palestinian Authority even went as far as condemning those who label the prisoners as terrorists. In the words of Qaraqi, the Minister for Prisoners Affairs, “We condemn attempts to distort the image of our prisoners by describing them as terrorists.”

The Palestinian Authority told the visiting Israeli MKs that it is opposed to violence “by any party.” Hours later, the Palestinian Authority told the Palestinian public that those who carry out terrorist attacks against Israelis are “heroes” and “revolutionary pioneers.”

The Palestinian Authority complains that there are more than 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. But the same Palestinian Authority is trying to hide the fact that it is holding and torturing many Palestinians in its prisons.

Originally published at Gatestone Institute.

European Jewish Congress President Dr. Moshe Kantor has called on the European Union to ignore the upcoming Palestinian Authority unity government.

Speaking at an executive EJC meeting in Jerusalem with top Israeli government officials, Dr. Kantor pointed out that EU leaders had yet to condemn the agreement signed Wednesday between the Fatah and Hamas factions.

“The Europeans have yet to condemn the signing of this unity agreement,” Kantor said. “We hear immediate condemnation every time some houses are built over the Green Line, but Brussels is silent on the Palestinian Authority’s new alliance with Hamas, a group whose charter openly aspires to the genocide of world Jewry.

“The Palestinians ignored their obligations and unilaterally applied to UN organizations, threatened to disband the PA and have now chosen to deal with the manufacturers of terror rather than the purveyors of peace,” he said. “It is perhaps time for the European Union to finally realize that they were applying pressure on the wrong side,” he added.

Dr. Kantor noted that European Jews are constantly hearing that Israel’s relations with Europe are “contingent on the peace process.” He commented that Europe should be able to “separate its excellent trade, economic relations and scientific and hi-tech cooperation with Israel from the conflict.”

The EJC delegation included members of Jewish communities from the UK, France, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, and Greece, among others.

The U.S. has finally tossed in the towel on trying to force the Palestinian Authority to come to the table to talk with Israel.

After months of shuttle diplomacy and countless attempts by U.S. leaders to shepherd the “peace process” along, the entire effort proved a waste of time and money.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) officials announced they had cut a deal for Fatah faction leader and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – who heads all three entities — to form a new unity government with the Hamas terror organization that rules Gaza.

Hamas has never recognized the State of Israel, and has stated that it never intends to. It is committed to the destruction of the Jewish State, in fact.

“It’s hard to see how Israel can be expected to negotiate with a government that does not believe in its right to exist,” pointed out State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki in a briefing Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is convening the inner diplomacy security cabinet this morning (Thursday) to discuss the current situation and decide whether to continue any contact whatsoever with the Palestinian Authority.

Mr. Netanyahu told Secretary of State John Kerry in a telephone call Wednesday evening that the PA-Hamas deal “shows the Palestinians are back to repeating their familiar pattern of running away from decisions.”

The pattern is indeed not new: Chairman Abbas has done this before – and the last time he reached a “reconciliation” with Hamas, he managed to sucker in not only the United States, but also the European Union and Israel. All three rushed in a panicky jumble to bribe him back to the “peaceful path” by promising him millions of dollars in funding, if only he would vow not to hook up with Hamas.

In the end, the unity government fell through because Hamas backed out – the Ramallah-based PA government won their millions – and everyone was that much richer, except for the Israelis who lost their lives at the hands of the terrorists who were freed in “good will gestures” forced on them by their U.S. friends.

The PA government in Ramallah used the money to quietly raise the salaries of terrorist prisoners sitting in Israeli jails and funnel more money to civil service employees working in Hamas-ruled Gaza offices.

The PA also won an extra bonus – it received considerable military equipment, weapons and training from the United States, Jordan and the EU — with which a number of its “police officers” have since murdered Israeli citizens in terror attacks.

Terrorists from Hamas-controlled Gaza attacked southern Israel with two rockets Wednesday evening, just about at the same time that the U.S. State Dept. woke up out of a stupor and managed to say it was “disappointed” in the unity announcement by Hamas and Fatah earlier in the day.

The missiles exploded in open areas near the Gaza security fence and in the Sha’ar HaNegev area, which includes the town of Sderot and surrounding farming moshaviim and kibbutzim. No injuries nor property damage was reported.

Earlier in the day, the IDF pre-empted a planned terrorist attack uncovered by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and carried out an aerial attack on a terrorist, missing the target who reportedly was riding a motorcycle in northern Gaza.. Several Arabs were wounded.

The rocket attacks, both those planned and the two carried out, sent a clear message, except to the international community that has long lost its senses of vision and hearing.

U.S. State Dept. spokeswoman old reporters at the daily media briefing that the United States is “disappointed” at the unity pact announced by Hamas and Fatah, led by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

“The timing was troubling and we were certainly disappointed in the announcement,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said at the daily news briefing.

“This could seriously complicate our efforts. Not just our efforts but the efforts of the parties to extend their negotiations.”

Repeat: “This could seriously complicate our efforts.”

Not really, because the Obama administration complicated “efforts” from the word “go” nine months ago. “Negotiations” have been non-existent because Abbas has left nothing to be negotiated.

He simply has agreed to do Israeli a big favor and give it nine months to turn over 104 terrorists, many of them lifers, in return for nine months in which Abbas does not go to the United Nations for unilateral declaration of the Palestinian Authority as an independent country.

Following the announcement of the Hamas-Fatah unity pact, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cancelled planned talks with Palestinian Authority “negotiators” Wednesday.

As far as Abbas is concerned, the unity agreement does not mean that “talks” cannot continue. After all, what difference does it make that he has agreed to a unity pact with the rival terrorist group that openly states it wants to destroy Israel?

The joker is that Fatah, headed by Abbas, has broken agreement after agreement, most recently by saying it would go to the United Nations for recognition, but that seems to be okay with the Obama administration because, after all, it is Fatah and not Hamas.

Now that Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh have torn up the divorce papers and re-married, so to speak, Hamas is Fatah and Fatah is Hamas.

And U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is jilted.

Rival Hamas and Fatah factions reached a unity agreement Wednesday afternoon, the big success of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s nine-month Peace Talks that now have given birth to political Siamese twins, guaranteed to destroy the Palestinian Authority.

The outline of the agreement was reported earlier today here.

Hamas announced in Gaza, and Ramallah officials confirmed to the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency, that peace between Hamas and Fatah will be finalized within five weeks, with elections to take place in six months.

Both rival factions agreed to release political prisoners that each side is holding.

Hamas and Fatah were unified in the Palestinian Authority administration until 2006, when the United States, as it is wont to do, blew it up by encouraging democratic elections that resulted with Hamas winning a majority in the PA legislature and making a fool out of then- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Slightly one year after the elections, Hamas and Fatah waged all-out war in Gaza. Fatah’s American-trained troops, those who remained alive, scuttled out like scared rabbits and jumped backed into their foxholes in Ramallah while Hamas took control of Gaza and continue its successful effort to its subjects deeper into hell.

Previous unity agreements have fallen flat on their terrorists’ faces, but this time it doesn’t matter  because the announcement itself, less than a week before the official end of Kerry’s nine-month charades, leaves Kerry only being able to announce that he unwittingly really has succeeded in achieving a peace agreement. Given the upside-world today, it would not be a wonder if he gets a Nobel Prize for his efforts.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett reacted to the anticipated unity agreement with the most superfluous statements of the year.

Lieberman said, “It is impossible to make peace with both Israel and Hamas, a terror organization that calls for the destruction of Israel,” and Bennett called the unity an “alliance of terror.”

More interesting will be the reaction of the Obama administration, starting with Wednesday’s daily press briefing at the U.S. State Dept., whose spokeswomen certainly are meeting with Kerry to figure out to get out of the trap the entire administration has set for them by hardly even mentioning the word “Hamas” the past nine months.

As Kerry would say, “’Poof,’ and it is gone.”

“Poof” is gone, but Hamas is around and kicking, when it is not shooting.

Basem Naim, a foreign affairs adviser to de facto Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniyeh was quoted by The Washington Post two months as saying, “Any talks that do not take Gaza into consideration will fail. Obama sees Gaza as a side issue, and he believes that Gaza and Hamas are not at the center of things, because we are not participating in these negotiations. This reflects a kind of naiveté, for the success or failure of all efforts depends on Gaza.”

What, Obama naïve?

How could that possibly be?

He has a grand strategy, just like all his other failed strategies for a new Middle East. Kerry was to hammer out a “framework” for peace, entangling Israel into a web it could not get out of, and then bringing in Hamas with some fancy doubletalk to tie the noose. President Barack Obama, during his visit to Israel and Ramallah last year said, “If there is a model where young Palestinians in Gaza are looking and seeing that in the West Bank, Palestinians are able to live in dignity, with self-determination, that’s something that the young people of Gaza are going to want.”

As in the story of Purim, he made a noose for himself.