Opposition by Germany and Britain to the Palestinian Authority bid to join the International Olive Council has forced the Palestinian Authority to freeze their application in applying to become a member state of the intergovernmental Madrid-based organization.

The Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry in Ramallah prepared the application this past summer in order to be voted upon at the annual olive council meeting held in Madrid last week.

According to European diplomatic sources, cited in Haaretz, British and German representatives claimed that letting the Palestinians join the council could sabotage current Israeli-Palestinian talks led by the United States.

Resuming peace talks were made on the condition that Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners would be done in exchange for the Palestinian Authority’s promise not to join various UN organizations and not to address The Hague’s International Criminal Court (ICC).

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has committed to continue talks for a nine-month period, during which time the Palestinian Authority has pledged to avoid any diplomatic actions against Israel. Thus far, Israel has released 52 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were convicted of murdering Israelis, out of the 104 Palestinian prisoners who will be freed as talks progress.

Germany and Britain are the member states of the European Union’s joint delegation to the International Olive Council, which is made up of 16 states in addition to the EU that produce olives and olive oil. If the states within the EU delegation are unable to reach a consensus, then the EU delegation must abstain from voting.

In any case, the Palestinians realized that the European Union would not vote in their favor for the olive council membership and preferred not to suffer diplomatic failure. Palestinian officials told Haaretz that the PA had instead decided to postpone their application to a more “opportune moment.” The next International Olive Council annual session will be held in November 2014.

State Dept. comments the past two week have made it clear that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu does not initiate any moves for building homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria without the approval of  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

After Israel announced plans to build approximately 1.500 new residential units in eastern Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria after it freed the second of four batches of terrorists in return for the privilege of arguing  directly with the Palestinian Authority, Kerry told reporters that although the United States does not approve of the building, “That is not to say that they weren’t aware, or we weren’t aware, that there would be construction. But that construction, importantly, in our judgment, would be much better off limited as much as possible in an effort to help create a climate for these talks to be able to proceed effectively.”

After Tuesday’s reports that Housing Minister Uri Ariel had hired an architect to draw up plans for 1,500 more residential units, including the controversial E-1 area in the city of Maaleh Adumim, State Dept. Jen Psaki told reporters, “We are deeply concerned by these latest reports that over 20,000 additional units are in the early planning stages. We were surprised by these announcements and are currently seeking further explanation from the Government of Israel.”

Asked if she expected a “heads up” from Israel before the announcement, Psaki explained, “Well, we were not – it was not an issue discussed in advance.“

But as Kerry implied last week, the State Dept. in the past has known about now building plans

One reporter told Psaki, “I remember you all said these were already announced long ago or whatever, even though they were coming at a time when the negotiations were just getting going. You said, ‘No, no, no. We knew about these, they were coming and everything was fine.’ Is this the first time that a new one has come along that was not part of that initial forewarning?”

Checkmate.

Psaki tried to get out of the corner. “I don’t recall us specifying which ones we were surprised and not surprised about. The Secretary did say last week, to your point, that it wasn’t a surprise that we knew there would be more announcements. So I don’t recall us specifying that with the different announcements. I’m not saying we knew about every other one, we just didn’t know about this one in advance.”

Clearly, Prime Minister Netanyahu told the State Dept. about the new building that was announced after more terrorists were freed two weeks ago. Clearly, he did not tell Washington about Ariel’s plans. The Prime Minister quickly pinned back Ariel’s ears, and the Housing Minister said he acquiesced to the big boss’ “request.”

All of the fuss over Ariel’s announcement, as usual, ignored the facts. He did not announce that new homes would be built tomorrow. All he did was state the lengthy bureaucratic procedure would start from square one. It would take approximately five to seven years before homes would be ready.

But the very thought of Israel even dreaming of building on what the United States wants to be part of the Palestinian Authority is enough sideline Kerry’s “peace talks,” a total misnomer because there is little talk and it is not about peace.

It is about how the Obama administration can force Israel to accept Abbas’ demands by pretending to be a mediator but acting on behalf of Abbas. If it doesn’t, he will go the United Nations for what he wants, and that would mean President Obama can’t be part of the action to justify his having received the Nobel Peace Prize.

That is why Kerry, besides being Secretary of State, also has the unofficial positions of Israel’s de facto Housing Minister and the Palestinian Authority’s de facto senior negotiator.

It is no  wonder that Saeb Erekat and his cohort Mohammed Shatayehh turned in their resignations Wednesday. They really don’t have much work to do because Kerry handles the load very nicely.

Ariel has not yet quit as Housing Minster.

Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas was in Lithuania this week to solidify backing for his agenda that would prevent Jews from living in Judea and Samaria and turn the areas into exclusive Palestinian Authority territory.

His nine-year strategy of drumming up support with visits around the world has won him virtually universal backing.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said after meeting with Abbas, “The European Union does not recognize settlements as part of Israel.”

Lithuania previously has adopted the PA stance, but her comments this week are more significant because Lithuania is the rotating chair of the European Union. She called on Israel “to end the expansion of settlements in the occupied territories,’ adding that ‘’such actions impair the progress of peace talks.”

Abbas’ trip has included stopovers at the Vatican and Germany and will continue next week with a meeting in Brussels with the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy.

The area under the government of the Palestinian Authority has long been known as a place of miracles.

For instance, during the first and second intifadas, no one in the PA ever died from illness or other natural causes. Everyone, one hundred percent of the people who died there were killed, often brutally, by the IDF. It was known as the age of miracles, and will come back, no doubt, should a third intifada intensify.

Meanwhile, a separate miracle has been manifesting in the PA, whereby no olive tree is ever pruned by Arabs – they’re all cut down brutally by settlers who, let’s face it, hate olive trees and are even prepared to violate the laws off Shabbat to take down those poor trees.

Like yesterday, to follow Ma’an’s report, Israeli settlers chopped down more than 100 olive trees in “the village of Qaryut early Saturday.”

“Ghassan Daghlas, a PA official who monitors settler activities in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Eli destroyed over 100 trees.”

Here’s a telling factoid in the same Ma’an story: “According to a 2012 report on Israeli settler violence released by the Palestine Center, a Washington-based nonprofit, every year the olive harvest period sees the highest peak in attacks on Palestinian civilians and property.”

So, you prune your tree, then you realize there are so many broken branches rolling on the ground, they shouldn’t go to waste, so you come up with this ingenious story about settlers who are mechallel Shabbes because they hate olives.

Ehud Amiton, Tazpit News Agency

Exactly three years ago, in October, 2010, our friends at the Tazpit news agency exposed Arabs and leftist activists (see picture above) who staged an attack on Palestinian fields in a bid to accuse settlers of vandalism, but didn’t know they were getting caught on camera. But for the most part the normal pruning makes the trees look like crazed Jews in their talaisim were all about, destroying one of the seven prized fruits of Eretz Israel.

President Barack Obama finally has given Americans a fun issue to debate so they can take their minds off Iranian nukes, Syrian chemical weapons and the zillion dollar debt, but the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is playing party pooper by turning it into a Jewish issue.

If the Washington Redskins’ football club owner Dan Snyder were not Jewish, would the name “Redskins” make such a difference to the ADL?

Other teams have also come under fire, including the Cleveland Indians, whose hook-nosed, red-faced mascot Chief Wahoo has been called racist and offensive, the JTA reported. The Atlanta Braves baseball team also is in the same club of offending an ethnic group.

“Tradition matters, but tradition should not justify the perpetuation of such names and mascots,” said ADL national director Abraham Foxman. “A name change will not impact how a team fares on the field, or in the standings.”

Snyder is sticking to his guns, or bow and arrow, and the Washington Post reported that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said, “It would be a real mistake – a real mistake – to think that Dan, who is Jewish, has a lack of sensitivity regarding somebody’s feelings. I promise you that.”

President Obama has turned the issue into a national debate, not the most burning issue for the great American empire but at least one that is a bit lighter than all of the burdens Americans carry because of an increasingly deaf and dumb government.

“I’ve got to say that if I were the owner of the team and I knew that there was a name of my team, even if it had a storied history, that was offending a sizable group of people, I’d think about changing it,” President Barack Obama said.

Not to many years ago, any ethnic group would have been proud to have a baseball or football team named after them. The “Baltimore Jews” or the “Brooklyn Blacks” would not have been offensive. It would have been badge of honor.

Even today, Walt “Red Hawk” Brown, the chief of Virginia’s Cheroenhaka Nottoway Tribe that was recognized by the Virginia General Assembly in 2010 but is not federally recognized , told a Richmond, Virginia television station that it’s “a great honor” when Native American words are used in popular culture.

“Why would my president says [Redskins is] is offensive to him?” Brown asked. “What’s offensive to me is this: we have 11 state recognized tribes, and he hasn’t done one thing to get those tribes federally recognized.”

But his voice is drowned out by the Melting Pot culture that not too many decades ago decided that Negro was too close to “nigger” and had to be replaced with “black,” which was not ethnic enough and had to be replaced with “Afro-Americans.”

But a Jew still is a Jew.

Or as Tom Lehrer once sang, “During National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week, “It’s fun to eulogize/The people you despise… Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics/And the Catholics hate the Protestants/And the Hindus hate the Muslims/And everybody hates the Jews.”

Consider the recent poll that shows more and more Jews, especially those who might not be Jews according to Jewish law but like to consider themselves as Jewish, regard their religion as a culture. That way, maybe the Jews won’t be hated, except by God for rejecting the concept of The Chosen People, which is obvious racism to the politically correct.

A “stomach Jew” used to be one who did not observe much of the Torah but ate gefilte fish. Today a  “stomach Jew” is one who can eat shrimp while wearing an “I Love Israel” shirt.

If  the “Redskins” is so suggestive of racism, Obama and Foxman have the wrong reasons for being so sensitive. And where is  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry when we need him to remind everyone of American history?

Doesn’t anyone remember that the  tiny U.S. government occupied the West Bank of the United States and put the Indians in refugee camps, called “reserves?”

There was no need for an Apartheid back then because the good Christian whites simply gunned down the Indians by the hundreds and by the thousands as part of the peace process.

Does pressing Snyder to bury the name “Redskins” cleanse the past and sterilize the present?

The European Union has donated tents to dozens of Arabs in Area “C” in the southern Hevron Hills to help them dig in for the winter in their attempt to create “facts on the ground” and take over the region that officially is under Israeli control as agreed in the Oslo Accords.

The Arabs, most of them squatters on acreage that was state land during the Jordanian occupation from 1949 until 1967, have used the tents for livestock and not just for families. The EU has donated tens of millions of dollars in recent years to move Arabs from the Hevron area into more remote areas of Area C to increase the Arab population.

Many of the Arabs go back to their former homes in the winter, but the sudden presence of the tents indicates that the EU wants to make their presence permanent.

The campaign has been accompanied by reports by Palestinian Authority media of alleged attacks on Arabs by Jewish residents in the area.

The terrorist attack on a nine-year-old girl Saturday night in Psagot in Samaria, reported here, has set off another storm of protests within the Likud party to call off the talks with the Palestinian Authority.

The victim of the latest attack is in good condition after being shot at closed range by a terrorist who had infiltrated into the community, located between Jerusalem and Beit El-Ofra. The terrorist still is at large.

Last month, Palestinian Authority terrorists murdered two Israeli soldiers, one of them having been kidnapped in the metropolitan Tel Aviv area by a PA resident without a work permit. He had intended to use his victim as barter to force Israel to release his brother, a terrorist, but instead threw his victim, Sgt. Tomer Hazan, into a pit.

All of the attacks came at the same time Israeli negotiators java been speaking with their Palestinian Authority counterparts at the rate of approximately once a week.

The resumption of the talks in late July was conditioned on Israel’s releasing 104 Palestinian Authority terrorists but in several stages,  in order test PA  chairman Mahmoud Abbas commitment to stop terror instead of inciting it,

The first group was released before talks began, and senior government coalition members are demanding that Israel, for a change, make the Palestinian Authority pay for not living up to an agreement.

“Anyone that backs terrorists cannot be called a negotiating partner,” asserts Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon of the Likud.

Tzipi Hotovely, another senior Likud Knesset Member and a very popular nationalist, insisted Saturday night that the government halt the talks with the Palestinian Authority.

Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett and party MK Shuli Moallem have been against the whole idea of linking peace talks with freeing terrorists.

The attack in Psagot, following two terrorist murders last month, has solidified their case. MK Moallem called the attack on Psagot “a red light” for the government” and added, “Whoever wants to preserve security doesn’t free prisoners.”

Bennett said, “Our ‘partner’ [Abbas] has not changed 20 years after the Oslo Accords,” he said that the murders of the two soldiers “shows us what kind of partner he is. We do not make peace with terrorists who throw dead bodies into a pit. We fight them without mercy.”

But the United States has a different view and likes to quote President Shimon Peres for having said numerous times, “One makes peace with enemies, not with friends, one of the most banal, pithy and naïve statements of the 21st century but one which reflects American impotence.

The recent terrorist attacks would be the death knell for the U.S.-backed peace talks if it weren’t for the fact that President Barack Obama and  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry  now are doing what they said they would not do – forcing the talks on Israel despite the Palestinian Authority’s lack of will or inability to stop terror.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Friday that the talks are going nowhere and that the Palestinian Authority still refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Maariv reported.

But Martin Indyk, Obama’s personal negotiator for Israel, has stepped into the talks. He met with negotiators on Friday to create a better atmosphere, which means forcing Israel to swallow more dirt and forcing Abbas to smile and talk nicely.

The Palestinian Authority insists on talking about borders, and Israel insists on discussing security, according to several media reports.

The United States already has stated its case on borders by calling every Jew who lives in Judea and Samaria and formerly Jordanian-occupied Jerusalem an “illegitimate” settler.

So much for not forcing an agreement on Israel.

But the issue of releasing terrorists is bound to be the one that will blow up the negotiations – or, more likely, force Israel to concede again, lest it lose Obama’s “good will.”