A Palestinian Authority news agency has bested itself for Best Fiction of the Year Award by blaming the IDF for forcing a local Muslim to drink wine at gunpoint after he supposedly refused to supply information on who was throwing rocks at Israeli motorists.

It is great story. Once again the Occupation Army humiliates Palestinian Authority Arabs, violates their rights and subjugates them to embarrassment and immoral behavior.

This one was so far-fetched that even foreign media and Israel’s leftist newspapers and radio channels ignored it.

The only place the story could be found on the Internet, other than the original source of the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency, was the Saudi Gazette.

Just to make sure, the Jewish Press asked the IDF to investigate and find out if there was any truth to the story, which of course, was a work of fiction.

The alleged incident occurred in a village called Beit Ummar, located on Highway 60 between Jerusalem and Kiryat Arba-Hebron. The highway is the only direct link between Jerusalem and the southern Hebron Hills. The village is infested with Hamas activists, and one of the favorite pastimes of the locals is to hurl firebombs and rocks at Israeli cars, almost every day.

According to the Ma’an news agency report, “Israeli intelligence officers forced a Palestinian man from Beit Ummar to drink wine at gunpoint on Tuesday evening.”

It even named the man, Muhammad Khalil Abu Dayyah (24).  The source for this great piece of journalism is the village’s “committee against Israel’s separation wall and settlements.”

The soldiers allegedly humiliated Muhammad because he refused to cooperate and tell the “names of young men who participate in clashes against Israeli forces.”

The soldier than supposedly pointed a gun at the back of his hand and told him to drink a bottle of wine.

The next chapter of this saga is even more chilling. The young man passed out for an hour and then the soldiers woke up him and threw him out of the guard tower where he has been taken into custody.

Great stuff.

And if anyone doubts that it is true, Ma’an added that an Arab eyewitness confirmed that Muhammad “appeared under the influence and smelling of alcohol.”

By the way, the “one hour” became “two hours” in the Saudi Gazette’s version of this story. The newspaper the reminded its reader of other IDF crimes in previous years – “a female Israeli soldier forced a Palestinian to drink a bottle of cleaning fluid at gunpoint, [and] in two other incidents, the soldiers forced Palestinian youths to drink their urine and sewage water.”

It took the IDF more than eight hours to draw up a response to the incident for the Jewish Press, and a military spokeswoman explained that the IDF wanted to make sure that all details were checked and that the necessary authorities approved the answer, which follows:

“After reviewing the incident, all indications show that the described event did not occur. Yesterday, a Palestinian who was apparently inebriated approached an army post near Beit Ummar. Using minimal, non-aggressive measures, IDF forces moved him away from the spot.”

“Military Sources: No active engagements took place between IDF forces and locals in the area in question during the last 48 hours.”

Now, let’s say the IDF is lying. Let’s say the soldiers really did force the Arab Muslim to get drunk. One question: Where did the bottle of wine come from? Is it part of the IDF equipment, along with the communications equipment, protective vest, rifle, canteen, cartridges and helmet?

Or maybe the canteen was filled with wine?

No, that won’t work, because it was a bottle of wine that was drunk. So the bottle was packed into a jeep, between the fire extinguisher and first aid equipment. carefully protected so it would not break?

The story really does not end here.

It is a daily story, with Ma’an and other Palestinian Authority news agencies reporting virtually every day that the IDF arrested or shot or attacked a mentally ill person, a pregnant women, a retarded child, a handicapped man or an elderly woman.

If one were to add up all of the wounded in these these stories , he or she would discover that all others, except for pregnant women, the elderly, the handicapped and the mentally ill – make up a tiny minority of the Palestinian Authority population.

Reader Elihu Stone pointed out to us that poor Muhammad Khalil Abu Dayyah has had a run of bad luck lately.

Other Ma’an articles over the past few months have reported that Muhammad Khalil Abu Dayyah was shot in the chest with rubber bullets during a funeral procession in February, also near Beit Ummar, and that Muhammad Khalil Abu Dayyah was detained overnight in April, in nearby Hebron.

With all that bad press, it’s no wonder he took up drinking, .

Florida Atlantic University has launched a website promoting diversity following complaints from Jewish groups about activities on campus by a pro-Palestinian group.

The website features a video on which faculty and students describe the Boca Raton school as diverse and open to students of all faiths. The video was created after meetings between the university leadership and the Florida chapter of the Anti-Defamation League.

Students for Justice in Palestine last year sent 200 students eviction notices bearing the university’s official stamp as a means of calling attention to what it said are Israel’s policies toward Palestinians. A number of Jewish students among the 200 said they felt threatened by the notices and violated university policy.

The video on the new website launches with positive impressions from Jews, including a professor of Judaic studies, the president of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County and a Jewish student.

An African-American said she sought information about other minorities on campus, and named the campus Hillel House as one to which she turned.

The Boulder City Council Monday night decided to leave the “peace process” for those with less common sense and overwhelmingly nixed a controversial proposal to adopt Nablus, the Arab version of the Biblical city of Shechem, as a sister city.

The council voted 7-2 against the proposal, according to the local ABC outlet Denver Channel, while the Boulder Daily Camera reported that the vote was 6-3.

Twinning cities is an international project, and even Israel cities have “sisters’ in the Palestinian Authority.

The problem with American and European cities twinning with those in the Palestinian Authority  is the political overtone.

Boulder has seven sister cites, in non-sensitive places – Kenya, Tajikistan, Nicaragua, Tibet, Mexico, Japan and Cuba.

The Palestinian Authority, of course, is not even a country, and that would not be an obstacle to its being twinned by an American city if it were not for the fact that twinning gives PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas the very ground support he has been trying to drum for more than eight years with a single minded aim.

He wants to create a new independent Arab country within Israel’s borders, which the international community insists do not exist.

Any city that has the lofty aim of generating peace with Arabs in Judea and Samaria cannot escape the fact it is involving itself with foreign affairs, even if unintentionally.

Being against twinning with Nablus does not mean taking a stand against the Palestinian Authority. It simply means that understanding culture and creating friendships in Tibet, Kenya and Japan is not the same as doing so in Palestinian Authority cities.

The Boulder-Nablus Sister City Project has been around for two years. Its stated mission sounds ideal.

“Both Arabs and Muslims are misrepresented and maligned by negative stereotyping in the US and we hope, through meaningful exchanges, to offer citizens of Boulder the opportunity to form friendships and to put a human face to the people of Palestine,” according to its website.

Isn’t that nice?

Of course, it is true. Arabs and Muslims are misrepresented. So are Jews. So are blacks, whites, Israeli settlers, Puerto Ricans, homosexuals, terrorists, clowns, Samantha Power and The Good Humor Man.

It is very nice that some well-meaning Americans in Colorado want to discover the truth about Arabs in the Palestinian Authority, but twinning with Nablus is not the way.

Americans, from Condoleezza Rice, to Hillary Clinton, her hubby Bill, John Kerry, President Obama and just about every other American citizen who “knows about the Middle East – the whole bunch of them really don’t have a clue.

If they did, they would not embark on peace processes and twining projects. You will never get to know Israel culture or Arab culture by eating a felafel with a Sabra or smoking a water pipe with an Arab.

In the political atmosphere that has suffocated the Arab-Jewish atmosphere ever since the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the truth sounds like a lie and the lie sounds like the truth.

In this context, the “human face” that the good citizens of Boulder want to find in the Palestinian Authority would come at the expense of Jews and Israel. No matter what happens in the Palestinian Authority, it is Israel’s fault.

If the Palestinian Authority  economy sags, it is because of Israel checkpoints. If the economy improves, it is despite Israel checkpoints.

If Arabs are not happy, it is because of the occupation. If they are happy, it proves their endurance in the face of the Occupation.

The Intermountain Jewish News wrote, “At best the supporters are idealistic and naive, enamored with the Palestinian underdog status. But the leaders of the underdogs are haters, and stand in opposition to everything Boulder stands for.”

“I’m not sure I want to attach Boulder’s name to it,” Boulder Mayor Matt Appelbaum,  told the Boulder  Daily Camera.

“This is not going to be a decision that resolves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is a bleeding wound,” said Boulder City Councilman Macon Cowles.

The city council heard four hours of testimony from 70 speakers before voting against the idea.

“It is dividing our Boulder community, rather than uniting us to work for peace,” said Beth Ornstein, a member of Bonai Shalom.

The European Union, which is one of the Palestinian Authority’s biggest benefactors, has succeeded in forcing Israel from building even one new home of Jews in areas of Jerusalem claimed by the PA, although the number of new housing starts in Judea and Samaria has tripled.

No official building freeze has been announced, but reports of a defacto freeze surfaced at the beginning of the year and were confirmed Monday by Army Radio and by sources at the Israel Land Authority. Plans for Jewish construction projects have been suspended in eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem, all of which the Palestinian Authority says will be part of a new PA country.

In stark contrast, housing starts in Judea and Samaria tripled in the first three months of this year.

The Palestinian Authority threatened last month it would sue Israel if dared to build even one more home for Jews in what is popularly termed eastern Jerusalem.

The European Union then went to bat PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and vowed it would back a suit against Israel in The Hague, as reported here.

Now that Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry know that Israel can be successful threatened on the diplomatic front, it remains to be seen if Kerry can succeed in satisfying Abbas’ demand for a total freeze as a condition to direct talks with the Netanyahu government.

Kerry was supposed to fly to Israel in Tuesday but has postponed his fifth trip to Israel this year until next week.

Two totally unrelated reasons for the postponement have been cited by different news sources.

Kerry presumably put off the trip due to urgent meetings on the question of whether the Obama administration will begin arming rebels in Syria, according to the Christian Broadcast Network. It also noted that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu plans to visit Poland for two days this week.

The Israel HaYom newspaper said the reason is simply that Kerry wants to give Abbas more time to think twice and removed his pre-conditions for direct talks with Israel.

U.S. State Dept. comments on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s scheduled return to Israel this year offer faint indications that the Obama administration, may finally be getting ready to tell the Palestinian Authority and Israel, “Go fight it out among yourselves and leave us alone.”

No one is quite certain why Kerry is coming, unless he has some super-duper trick up his sleeve. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has dug his heels deep in the Saudi 2002 Initiative that has been developed into the basis of PA demands that there is nothing to be negotiated.

On the Israel side, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon, one of the most senior and nationalist Likud Knesset Members, took it upon himself to say that the government is against a two-state solution.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was so upset that he called on the Sabbath to the Times of Israel website, which had quoted Danon, to voice his distance from Danon’s remarks.

The facts on the ground tell the story. On the one hand, Palestinian Authority Arabs, heavily backed by European Union and international leftist funding, have settled on thousands of acres in Judea and Samaria to stake claims and isolate Jewish communities.

On the other hand, In  the first three months of this  year, there were 865 housing starts in Judea and Samaria, compared with 313 in the same period in 2012, mirroring the nationalist influence of the Jewish Home party and its “partner through silence,” Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party.

Significantly, the figures do not include areas of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinian Authority and where the Netanyahu government has reportedly carried out a de facto building freeze since the beginning of the year.

Senior PA negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday following Danon’s comments, “I believe that a government that continues to tender settlements and rejects the two-state solution will not go for peace.”

So why does the Obama administration really think anyone is listening?

It does have an audience, limited but elite.

Only someone with the Ivory Tower view of President Shimon Peres, and there are still a few thousand like him, could actually believe that Abbas is sincere in wanting a peace agreement with Israel, even if all of his demands are met, while refusing to declare that Israel is a “Jewish state.” And only the same view could actually believe that peace can be achieved even Israel were to satisfy all of Abbas’ demands.

“It’s clear not only to us Palestinians but also to the American administration and John Kerry that the current Israeli government is not interested in the peace process,” Nimr Hamad, an adviser to Abbas, told the Associated Press. “The Palestinian position is clear. Israel has to be forced to stop the settlement activity.”

Abbas has long passed the point of no return, and Netanyahu, honest or not, can comfortably go through the motions of wanting to negotiate because he knows Abbas will refuse.

Is Kerry finally getting the message?

In Washington, the growing doubts among reporters of what has become a “peace process charade” have started to creep into the State Dept. comments.

In Friday’s daily news briefing, State Dept, spokeswoman Jen Psaki emphasized what previously has been stated as  a secondary clause:

“Let me just reiterate the larger point here, which is that this is between – this is up to the Israelis and the Palestinians to make the decision to move back to the negotiating table… But it is ultimately up to both sides, regardless of who else is involved on the outside.”

She could not even answer reporter’s questions concerning what meetings Kerry will conduct.

Kerry and President Barack Obama have said before that in the end, the Palestinian Authority and Israel  must decide if they want an agreement.

Kerry does not want to be another failure  following a long line off U.S. diplomats who have thought they could change the Middle East.

The smartest thing would be for Kerry to blame both sides and make a quick exit.

Is Kerry smart? Don’t bet on it.

A Palestinian Authority official stormed out of a Boycott Israel conference in Bethlehem after a heckler insulted PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – and was hospitalized for his insults.

“Jawad Naji was speaking at the ‘Fourth National Conference for the boycott of Israeli goods,’ held at Bethlehem University, when a member of the audience, Nizar Banat, shouted insults at the president and the PLO,” the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency reported.

After Naji left the conference room, others in the audience joined security personnel to assault Banat, who was hospitalized for bruises to his head and legs.

Originally published at Rubin Reports.

There’s an old saying: it’s better to keep one’s mouth shut and be thought a fool than to speak and prove it. That is Secretary of State John Kerry’s problem.

What is remarkable is how Kerry has painted himself into a corner, not just staking his term as secretary of state on making Israel-Palestinian peace but in doing so in a matter of weeks.

“If we do not succeed now, we may not get another chance,” Kerry told the American Jewish Committee.  ”I have heard all of the arguments for why it is too difficult to end this conflict,” he added. “Cynicism has never solved anything. It has never given birth to a state, and it won’t.”

Well, not exactly. First, Kerry is practically begging the Palestinian Authority to accept a state. The problem is not cynicism but naivete. The cynicism is based on long experience and a careful evaluation of the political, economic, and strategic factors involved.

Second, Kerry hasn’t heard that the last chance already happened thirteen years ago at the Camp David meeting in 2000. No amount of wishful thinking will make it otherwise. In fact, that endangers people.
Let’s review:

–PLO, Palestinian Authority, and Fatah leader Yasir Arafat turned down an independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem and around $20 billion in aid as a starting point in further talks.

–He launched a five-year-long war of terror against Israel in which around 2000 Israelis were killed.

–When offered an even better deal by President Bill Clinton Arafat turned it down.

–Even when besieged in his headquarters—saved only by U.S. intervention from total, humiliating defeat—Arafat still rejected compromise.

–In the 13 years since the Camp David meeting the Palestinians have not pursued any serious negotiations.

–About half the territory and people the Palestinian Authority claims to negotiate for is not even under its control but is being ruled by Hamas which advocates genocide against the Jews and is totally opposed to peace on any terms. Hamas would do everything possible to wreck any deal made by the PA and that group has about 20 to 30 percent support on the West Bank.

–In the present climate of Islamist triumphalism, Hamas has more state support than the PA and the PA is terrified of being “traitorous moderates.”

–The PA strategy is clearly to get maximal recognition of a state without having to make a deal with Israel. Kerry’s recent offer of $4 billion (for tourism development!)–how much will the U.S. government pay off the PA for pretending to negotiate?–was turned down by the PA within 24 hours even though they could use the money for the leadership’s Swiss bank accounts.

Might some of these facts be relevant?

Kerry gave the typical line that unless Israel gets a two-state solution, it will have to choose between its Jewish and democratic nature.

Ludicrously untrue. If that didn’t happen when Israel occupied the whole of the territories captured by it in 1967 and governed the Arabs there on a daily basis—a period of 27 years in the West Bank and about 35 in the Gaza Strip—it isn’t going to happen now. There was a time when Israelis advocated annexation of these territories but that hasn’t been true for many years. Of course, Israel will not have to choose.

Who cares about how many Palestinians there are, they aren’t being ruled by Israel and they are not Israeli citizens.
Absent as usual from Kerry’s analysis are the risks that Israel would take if it accepted a Palestinian state under current conditions.

Consider these statements by Kerry:

The belief that a security fence and the status quo could bring Israel security are “lulling themselves into a delusion….The absence of peace is perpetual conflict. … We will find ourselves in a negative spiral of responses and counter-responses….”

The problem, however, is an unspoken premise that if the status quo changed and there was an independent Palestinian state, the conflict would go away and there would be full peace. In fact what would happen is that the conflict would continue under worse strategic conditions for Israel.

“I am confident that both sides are weighing the choices that they have in front of them very, very seriously.”
No. Both sides are pretending to weigh choices in order to avoid insulting you. A serious analysis of the factors involved show that nothing is going to happen. An accurate view of reality should be the foundation for policymaking.

A case can be made for Kerry showing himself as working hard for peace in order to defuse any possible effect on events elsewhere in the region. But by working too hard, spending too much of his time on the issue, and making absurd claims that he is going to succeed, Kerry is setting himself up for an embarrassing fall.

Also by promising quick results he is destroying the chance for the United States to pretend it is laboring around the clock supposedly–what?–to ease the situation with a civil war in Syria, a nuclear bomb in Iran, a Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt, etc.

Senior Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat threatened on Tuesday that the Palestinian Authority will carry out its threat to charge Israel with war crimes in the international court if it does not agree to direct talks for establishing a Palestinian Authority independent country based on the PA’s definition of borders.

He also said that it will be Israel’s fault if Palestinian Authority violence and terror escalates unless Israel agrees to its conditions for talks, which U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said must begin by Friday. Facing total rejection, Kerry already has asked PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for an extension of the deadline until June 20, according to the Palestinian Authority.

Erekat’s rhetoric is nothing new, and that is exactly why it may not work this time.

Virtually every American reporter who does not have an obvious agenda has learned that the Palestinian Authority has been twisting everyone around its twinkie for 20 years by making up its own rules of the game every time Israel is ready to play ball.

Abbas is assuming that Kerry will literally sell out Israel for the sake of continuing the dead, buried and decomposed peace process.

Given the grumbling social mood in the United States and the growing impatience of the American electorate for their government’s involvement in the quicksand of dead-end foreign affairs, Abbas is in for a nasty surprise when President Barack Obama finally lives up to his word that there is no sense trying to force an agreement when there is none to be made.

While  Abbas continues to say the “ball is in Israel’s court,” he actually has taken the ball home ever since he took the audacious move to tell President Obama to get lost while he went to the United Nations for a General Assembly resolution recognizing a Palestinian Authority state exactly as he wants. Jerusalem would the PA’s capital, Israel would return to the Temporary Armistice lines of 1949-1967, and millions of foreign Arabs would flood Israel and reduce the Jews to a minority.

Abbas figures that the resolution is a stepping stone is in his grand winner-take-all strategy, even though there will be no winner and no one will take it all.

After the General Assembly resolution, Abbas won Palestinian Authority membership on UNESCO and pulled out his “war crime” threat.

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki then generously promised Kerry the PA would not seek membership on the International Court of Justice, as a “goodwill gesture” for Israel to think twice before rejecting the idea of accepting PA demands.

Al-Maliki said the PA was giving Kerry time to manipulate things the way Abbas wants.

Now that time has all but run out, Erekat pulled out the war crime threat again while crying on the shoulders of journalist and diplomats, saying,  ”If people like us don’t succeed to make peace with the Israeli government, what will the Palestinian people think?”

For good measure, he poured honey all over Kerry, stating that “Kerry’s failure cannot be an option.”

Kerry told American Jews on Monday that if the peace process fails, as if it hasn’t already, “What will happen if the Palestinian economy implodes? If the Palestinian security forces dissolve? If the Palestinian Authority fails?”

Erekat answered that question on Tuesday by threatening to charge Israel with war crimes, which is going to be chapter 2543, more or less, in the Decline and Fall of the Peace Process.