Just after 8:30 AM, an alert was raised in the town of Rosh Tzurim in Gush Etzion, after a suspicious man was spotted within the community.

The man was spotted by a policeman and a local resident.

Last night, the town’s security noted a breach into the settlement.

Alert levels have also been raised in nearby Elazar, Alon Shvut and Deer Land park, as a result.

It’s a shame the Times of Israel and other news outlets chose to regurgitate AP’s article, “Netanyahu years see more settlement growth“, “West Bank settlement expansion surged under Netanyahu” and the other variations on that title’s theme, without bothering to add any critical editorial commentary or response to how AP selectively presented their data and reached their conclusions.

Starting with the various titles (some worse than others), the article is misleading from beginning to end.

“The population of Jewish settlers in the West Bank has surged during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s years in office, growing at more than twice the pace of Israel’s overall population, according to newly obtained official figures.”

After repeatedly telling us how much Netanyahu supports settlement construction and growth, using words like “surge” and “strong” and “continued support”, it’s only 6 paragraphs into the article that AP bothers to admit (right before reminding us that the settlement population “more than doubled” in 21 years):

“The rate of settler population growth slowed slightly under Netanyahu, from 31% during the previous five years under his predecessors Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.”

“Slowed slightly” - exactly how much is “slightly”?

It’s only towards the end of the article, quoting the “anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now,” who claims that settlement growth rates are now “23% inside the barrier and 20% beyond it”.

If under Sharon that percent was 31%, and under Netanyahu that percent dropped to 20%-23% – um, wheres the surge?

Are you still with me when I ask how these papers let this AP article be published?

Continuing on, you might also find yourself confused from the beginning — is the article talking about new settlements? New home construction? Population growth? The article seems to go back and forth, mixing them together.

Correct.

The article mixes them together, but suspiciously leaves out the hard numbers on actual construction data, sticking only to select population growth numbers and percentages – and there’s a reason for that.

In 2010 (I provide the raw data at the end of the article, all supplied from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics website), Netanyahu completed construction on 1670 homes in Judea and Samaria. That number reached a low of 1,272 in 2012, and in 2013 was only 1,439.

Between 2010 – 2013, the settlement population grew by approximately 50,000 people, yet the total number of new homes built was a mere 6,062 – nowhere near enough for the population’s needs.

It gets worse.

The AP article likes to talk percentages, so let’s use their lingo.

In 2013, Settlers represented 4.28% of the national population – yet only 3.37% of national construction was completed in Judea and Samaria.

Since 2010, the settlements’ share from the national percentage of housing completions has only declined — under Netanyahu.

For the period between 2010 to 2013, settlers averaged 4.19% of the national population – but only represented 3.23% of national house starts and 4.1% of national housing completions.

In short, unlike what the article wants to make you think, under Netanyahu, besides not being allowed to build what the population needed, settlements did not even receive their fair share of new homes compared to the rest of Israel.

Considering AP’s history, it’s important to point out that the article liberally quotes the radical left-wing Peace Now, but yet doesn’t quote NGO-Monitor or any settler for that matter who might have a thing or two to say about Peace Now’s statements or this data.

But now let’s also talk about the Arabs in Judea and Samaria, since the article addresses them too.

The article makes a doubly ridiculous statement that the Israeli papers let slide:

“The more than 2 million Palestinians in the West Bank cannot vote for the Israeli government that controls much of their lives, while Jewish settlers can.”

To begin, Ambassador Yoram Ettinger’s research shows there to be approximately 1.69 million Arabs in Judea and Samaria in 2013, not over 2 million – the 2 million+ is based on clearly false data provided by the Palestinian Authority. Even if you don’t accept Ettinger’s exact numbers, the numbers AP supplies are disputed, and they should have mentioned that.

The second is that the article wants to imply, if not say outright, that Israel is an Apartheid state by not allowing “Palestinians” the right to vote for the Israeli government.

Except for one minor detail — the Arabs in Judea and Samaria have their own government that controls much of their lives.

The Arabs in Judea and Samaria pay taxes to the Palestinian Authority, they can serve in the Palestinian Authority’s army, police, national and municipal authorities, they run their own schools and can fill up their children’s minds with as much anti-Semitic brainwashing as they want (and they do), and when their government allows them to, the Arabs in Judea and Samaria even get to vote for their own government.

If there were any sentence in the AP article that shows how biased the article is, it is certainly that one.

It really is unfortunate that this AP article was posted by any Israeli paper of note, but worse, that it was published without any critical editorial response from the papers that published it.

Sky News footage of the confrontation between the IDF and the Palestinian Authority minister who eventually died shows that Arabs may have prevented his life from being saved because they refused the help of an IDF medic.

Ziad Abu Ein, the “Minister for Settlements,” which actually means the “Minister against Settlements,” was leading a protest march towards the Jewish community of Adei Ad when soldiers blocked the protesters from continuing.

Abu Ein refused to accept the orders from soldiers and yelled at them “dog” as well other expletives. At one point a soldier briefly grabbed him by the neck.

Abu Ein , who had a heart condition and suffered from high blood pressure, then sat down, short of breath.

Previous video footage, almost always  taken by Arab photojournalists who more frequently than not edit their work to frame Israel and make  the Palestinian Authority as the victim, did not show the women soldier trying to administer aid to Abu Ein.

Arabs on the scene refused to let her help, and the Sky News commentator who broadcast the video footage, which can be seen here, said that it raises a question, “Had he been left there with the treatment of the Israeli medic, he may have survived.”

He also noted that there is not video footage to substantiate claims that  soldier hit Abu Ein in his chest with his helmet or with a rifle butt.

Evidence form the autopsy showed that Abu Ein was a prime candidate for death. Evidence from the autopsy showed that more than 80 percent of his blood vessels were blogged, and the refusal to accept immediate help from a Jew from ”occupation army” instead of wasting precious time and hauling him off to a hospital could have led to his death.

The Palestinian Authority has claimed that the autopsy conducted by an Israel, Jordanian and PA doctor  prove “without a doubt” that Abu Ein was beaten, while the official autopsy report states that he died of a heart attack which likely was brought on by stress.

Soldiers stopped the protest march to prevent certain violence that would have occurred had Abu Ein’s group reached Adei Ad.

They used tear gas, a standard riot dispersal method, to turn back the rioters, and Abu Ein very likely may have been short of breath from inhaling the gas.

Almost unmentioned in the news report of the clash and the minister’s death is that he has been using his position of minister to incite riots and that in 1979 he personally set off a bomb explosion that killed two Israelis and wounded 36 others during a Lag B’Omer celebration in Tiberias.

He fled to the United States, was extradited to the United States in 1981 and served three years in jail before Israel cut short his life sentence and released him along with 11,50 other terrorists and security prisoners in exchange for three Israeli prisoners held in Lebanon.

I would write that Abu Ein finally received justified punishment, but that would be considered incitement.

The State Dept. insists that its anti-settlement policy is not dependent on President Barack Obama and will continue even after he leaves the White House in January 2017.

Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon told high school students this week in Gush Etzion, which the United States considers “illegal,” that the  Obama Administration “won’t be around forever” and that Israel will resume building for Jews in Judea and Samaria once he is gone as president.

He apparently thinks Hillary Clinton won’t succeed Obama.

Ya’alon has a habit of saying what he thinks before he thinks. Earlier this year, he was quoted as stating in “private” remarks that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is “obsessed ‘and has a Messianic complex when it comes to the “Peace Process.”

He didn’t bother to think that his remarks to the high school students this week would be quoted, but maybe it is better off to give the White House a not so gentle reminder that it is going to have to fight hard in the Israeli election campaign if it wants to get rid of people like Ya’alon, who don’t take orders from Washington., which thinks otherwise.

“This Administration’s opposition to settlements is fully consistent with the policies of administrations for decades, including of both parties. So the notion that would change is not borne out by history,” State Dept. spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters at Wednesday’s press question and answer session,

She agreed that Obama will be out of office in two years, pending a sudden change in the U.S. Constitution, and the next administration is not going to change anything regarding the audacity of Israel to build homes for Jews in half of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, where it had been doing so for more than 40 years before President Obama blew in with the wind.

Previous administrations, contrary to what Psaki says, never have been called Jews “illegitimate” for living in areas of Jerusalem that the Palestinian Authority, with the backing of the State Dept. thinks is their God-given property.

Ya’alon notwithstanding, Israel will be stuck with American opposition to Jews living within Israel’s borders that the United States determines, according to Psaki.

It is unusual for a State Dept. spokesperson to predict what future administrations will determine.

Maybe she knows something that no one knows, but it is more likely that her comments give testament to an attempt to make the State Dept.’s long-standing pro-Arab policy part of the White House Bible.

Two IDF battalions and two Border Patrol units from the Israel Police force were sent to beef up security Wednesday in Judea and Samaria, while Jewish towns raised their alert status.

The order by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz followed the sudden heart attack and death of a Palestinian Authority minister who was participating in clashes with Israeli soldiers at a village near the PA capital of Ramallah, in Samaria.

PA Minister of Settlements Ziad Abu Ein, formerly the entity’s Minister of Prisoner Affairs, collapsed during the violence. He died shortly after at a Ramallah hospital.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas immediately blamed Abu Ein’s death on Israeli soldiers who were trying to quell the violent mob, calling it an “intolerable barbaric act.”

Regardless, Israeli pathologists from the Abu Kabir Forensics Institute in Tel Aviv will join with Jordanian pathologists to investigate the cause of death, the IDF said in a statement. It is not clear where the autopsy will take place.

It is expected that Abu Ein’s body will be laid to rest on Thursday, the day after he died of what appears to have been a heart attack.

Gantz’s decision to send more troops to the region came following an assessment made during a meeting with senior security chiefs.

Arabs began rioting in Kalandia Wednesday evening, according to a military source. The PA village is situated between Ramallah and Jerusalem and is a flashpoint for violence. It has become one of the “hot spots” where Arab demonstrations often spiral out of control.

Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria immediately went to high alert following Abu Ein’s death; security teams beefed up patrols.

But the entire country is on a moderate alert status in any case, due to the ongoing Arab violence that has been maintained at a simmer by both Israeli Arab agitators and those in the Palestinian Authority since the inconclusive end to this summer’s counter terror Operation Protective Edge.

Daily attacks against Israelis on the roads, in the Jerusalem Light Rail and elsewhere around the country has kept tensions high between Arabs, Jews and other Israelis . Among those “others” are the Druze who serve in the nation’s security forces, and who have also lost members of their community in the lethal Arab violence aimed at Israelis.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has summoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to an urgent meeting next Monday ahead of a United Nations Security Council vote in two weeks on a Palestinian Authority timetable to demand Israel’s withdrawal to the old Temporary Armistice Lines by 2016.

Haaretz, which often is privy to reports from ”anonymous” senior officials when it comes to cooperation with the Obama, reported that the Kerry-Netanyahu talks will last for several hours.

The Office of the Prime Minister told The Jewish Press it could not confirm or deny the report.

President Barack Obama does not want to be put in a position to have to decide whether or not to veto an anti-Israel decision by the Security Council.PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas has served notice that he no longer is interested in the American-backed “peace process” and that he will achieve his demands via the United Nations, where the General Assembly is overloaded with pro-Arab countries.

As an alternative proposal to the 2016 deadline, France has suggested a two-year deadline for permanent agreement based on the “Green Line” borders that were erased by the Sic-Day War in 1967.

The French proposal is based on Israel accepting the old borders with the exception of land swaps, and that Jerusalem be divided between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Haaretz reported that it is not clear if Kerry will propose his own proposal.

Obama and Kerry’s insistence on forcing an agreement down the throats of both sides, instead of living up to their former word that it cannot bargain for both parties, has left them high and dry.

Israel has refused to buckle under pressure for another building freeze on homes for Jews.

Abbas has snubbed Washington by declaring the “peace process” dead and by essentially telling the United States he can get what he wants in the United Nations, with or without Obama.

The timing of the U.N. vote is incredible because of the sudden election campaign in Israel.

Assuming the Security Council approves the Palestinian Authority proposal, an American veto would spoil the case by anti-Netanyahu parties that the Prime Minister has destroyed good relations with the United States.

The lack of a veto would instantly be seen as an attempt to undermine Netanyahu and interfere in the elections.

If the Obama administration would have taken the opportunity to chuck the whole mess it has fostered, it would be off the hook.

Instead, Obama might find himself hanging on it.

Palestinian Authority sources reported that the PA ‘Minister against Settlements” was killed in a riot and clashes with the IDF at the village of Turmus Ayya near Ramallah.

The minister was identified as Ziad abu Ein, 55, who reportedly was beaten by soldiers with their rifles and was butted by their helmets and then suffered a heart attack after inhaling tear gas.

However, a video below shows abu Ein sitting down, apparently short of breath but without any signs of being beaten. He was known to be suffering from high blood pressure.

The clash occurred after Arabs staged a protest march following the alleged stoning of an Arab village by Jews living on the Adei Ad community in Samaria, apparently in retaliation for a series of thefts, including a horse that was stolen on Tuesday.

Adei Ad residents said that abu Ein was leading a protest march towards the community and that the demonstrators rioted when the IDF blocked their path.

Abu Ein was a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and was the former director of the Palestinian Authority Ministry for Prisoners, meaning terrorists sentenced to jail in Israel.

He knows the job inside out. Abu Ein was once convicted for planting explosives that killed two Jews in Tiberias  ini 1979, but he was freed in of Israel’s goodwill releases of terrorists.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas said after Ein was pronounced dead in a Ramallah hospital, “We will not remain silent. We will do whatever is necessary after studying the results of an investigation concerning the murder of abu Ein,” which he called a “continuation of attacks on the PA government.”

He called for three days of mourning, and the Al Arabiya website reported that Abbas will suspend security coordination with Israel. The PA has not confirmed the report, but if it is true, it would give a green light to terrorists as well as undermine stability for the Palestinian Authority.

Israel Arab Knesset Member Jamal Zahalka called for an official inquiry commission and blamed the IDF for using dangerous means to disperse riots.

He said, “There was not any friction between the soldiers and the minister, but we still are investigating.”

The left-wing Yesh Din pro-Arab lobby said it will appeal to the Supreme Court to destroy Adei Ad “because of the fact that it was built illegally and that part of it was built on private land owned by PA Arabs.” Yesh Din also charged that Adei Ad is “a center of criminal activities that violate the human rights of Arabs in the area.”

Abu Ein is seen being treated by Arabs in the RT news video below.