Visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper exposed anti-Israel media bias Tuesday by noting that no reporter asked him in Ramallah about human rights in the Palestinian Authority but peppered him with questions on Jewish settlements when he was in Jerusalem.

At a joint press conference with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Tuesday, Harper was asked several times to make a statement on settlements. He kept repeating what he has said he arrived on Sunday – that the purpose of his visit is not to “single out Israel” for criticism.

When a reported pressed him again on the issue, Harper replied, “Once again, let me emphasize it: I am not here to single out Israel for criticism. I find it, you know, interesting – let me just make it as an observation – that, you know, yesterday in the Palestinian Authority, no one asked me there, no one asked me there to single out the Palestinian Authority for any criticism in terms of governance or human rights or anything else.

“I’m asked to single out Israel. When I’m in Israel,  I’m asked to single out Israel; when I’m in the Palestinian Authority, I’m asked to single out Israel; and in half the other places around the world you ask me to single out Israel.”

Harper in a single swipe described the international mindset against Israel more clearly than any Israeli official has ever done.

Netanyahu picked up the beat and stated, “Now, there are two things that I want to puncture, two prevailing myths. Well, one is no longer with us. The first one, which was repeated ad nauseum – you can check if you are a repeater – but until recently, everybody who knew anything about the Middle East explained that the core of the conflict, always in the singular, conflict; the core of the conflict in the Middle East was the Palestinian problem. You remember that?

“Now, today you’d be laughed out of most places…, including the leading campuses in the West – even there – if you argued this, what was accepted as a common, obvious truth…

“The core of the many conflicts of the Middle East is not the Palestinian conflict. But what is the core of the Palestinian conflict itself? And here you have another great myth, and the myth is that the core is basically the settlements. Okay, now mind you the settlements issue, on which Canada has a different position from Israel – I guarantee you, that’s the case, okay? But the core, the settlement issue has to be resolved and will be resolved in a context of peace negotiations. But it is not the core of the conflict. We know that because this conflict raged for half a century before there was a single Israeli settlement, before there was a single Israeli soldier in Judea, Samaria or Gaza.

“This conflict began in 1920, 1921, with the attack on the Jewish immigration depot – murderous attack – in Jaffa. In Jaffa! And it raged on in the attack on the ancient Jewish community of Hebron; it’s been there since, practically unbroken since the time of Abraham – almost 4,000 years.

“And continued in the great attacks by the Palestinians on the Jews here in 1936 to 1939; there were no settlements there. It continued in the rejection of the partition resolution in 1947 that called for a Palestinian state next to – an Arab state actually – next to the Jewish state. There were no settlements. And it continued right up to 1967 when the West Bank, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza were firmly in Arab hands and it was meant to… to do what? To liberate the lands that were already in their hands?…

“Price Tag’ vandals slashed tires on dozens of cars and destroyed trees in the Arab village of Kablan in Samaria Monday night, according to local villagers and the pro-Palestinian Authority Rabbis for Human Watch organization.

Most of the damaged vehicles reportedly were in car repair garage, and graffiti was scrawled on a nearby wall with the slogan “Na Nach Nachm Nachman M’Uman,” a mantra used by Breslov Chassidic followers of Rav Nachman.

If the rabbi were alive today, he would be sorely tested to retain his saintly presence in the face of the alleged vandalism that continues to paint all Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria as criminals.

The police and the IDF have opened up an investigation. Leftists have criticized police for not being able to catch and bring to price tag vandals to a trial that results in a conviction.

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s Minister of Economy and the head of the Jewish Home party, told a party meeting Monday that the claim that a two-state solution will benefit both the Palestinian Authority and Israel is a lie.

He labeled the “economic” track as another excuse to divide Israel. One of  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s selling points is a  $4 billion package of goodies for his dream of a Palestinian Authority state alongside an Israel that would be less than half its size since the Six-Day War in 1967.

“A Palestinian state would destroy Israel’s economy,” Bennett said in an unusually aggressive speech that reflects his certainty that Kerry’s peace talk venture is headed to the same destination as its source – the cemetery where the peace process was buried more than three years ago.

Bennett pulled out a map of the “New Israel,” as originally proposed by the Saudi Initiative of 2002 and since adopted in principle by the United Nations and the United States..

“How will Israel’s economy look if a rocket will fall in …central Herzliya? [or] a missile brings down a plane at Ben Gurion Airport?” he asked.

He said that the peace talk promoters are using the economy like they once used “peace” and “demographics” as excuses to divide Jerusalem and separate Judea and Samaria from Israel.

Bennett is sounding more and more assured recently, and his sharp political antenna sense what foreign media and Israel’s anti-Netanyahu media refuse to acknowledge – that Kerry is headed for a crash landing.

He has made the same mistake as every wannabe peacemaker before him – George Mitchell, David Hale, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton and a host of others who will not be credited even in footnotes when historians look back ask what on Earth the United States was thinking when it thought it could change the Middle East into an extension of Foggy Bottom.

The funny thing it, and it really is sad, is that none of the Western do-gooders looked at the economies of Judea, Gaza and Samaria before and after 1967.

Egypt treated Arabs in Gaza as if they were on the moon, while Jordan at least acknowledged that Arabs in Judea and Samaria were on the same planet, but nothing more.

Growth was stagnant. Education was poor. Infrastructure remained undeveloped. Thanks to the Jordanian prohibition of Christians and Jews from visiting holy sites, tourism was miserable.

All of that changed in 1967. After the war, the Arabs in Judea, Gaza and Samaria were freed from the yoke of their Arab rulers. The entire region blossomed. Israelis flocked to the “occupied” territories to buy cheaper goods and produce.

Israel opened up all holy sites to all religions. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs, not yet called Palestinians, worked in Israel.

Yasser Arafat, born in Egypt, changed all of that.

Bennett should have brought out the graphs of the economy before and after Arafat to show how the Intifada destroyed the Palestinian Authority economy.

The next illogical step, as Bennett warned Monday, is to destroy the Israeli economy.

A Border Police officer shot and seriously wounded a suspected Palestinian Authority terrorist Monday afternoon near the Jewish community of Telem, located on the highway leading from Kiryat Arba-Hebron to Kiryat Gat and Beit Shemesh.

The policeman spotted the suspect running towards the security control tower.

The suspect ran away after warnings shots were fired in the air but refused to stop when another policeman chased after him, ordered him to halt and shot in the air. The suspect continued to run away, and shots were fired at his legs.

He is being treated at Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem, and security forces are investigating the incident. it is not known if the suspect was armed.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rolled out the red carpet for visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is on his first-ever trip to Israel along with 21 rabbis, a Catholic priest, 27 CEOs, six government ministers and eight members of Parliament.

After getting the royal treatment by Prime Minister Netanyahu Sunday night, Harper, an evangelical Christian and an accomplished musician who leads a bad called “Herringbone,” visited the Mount of Olives (Har HaZeitim) in Jerusalem.

Harper traveled to Bethlehem and then paid an obligatory visit to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah on Monday, where he announced $66 million in new economic aid.

The first set of talkbacks on Canadian news sites included these negative remarks: “Thank you Mr. Harper that you found one more way to dump our tax money took them of our poor people, veterans, retirement person;

“Didn’t Canada and other nations declare Hamas a TERRORIST organization? Why not offer aid AFTER there is an established peace….;

“Extend our best wishes and offer to mediate. Stop throwing money down the big hole; and

“Well done Prime Minster Harper, Canada supports Israel, Canada’s closest friend in the Middle East.”

In fact, Canada has reduced its aid to the Palestinian Authority. Its five-year-commitment of $300 million has expired. Today’s pledge is for this year, and Harper did not go beyond that.

His pro-Israel stand is so strong that it drove the left-wing Haaretz to dig out a Canadian foreign ministry website position against the “illegal” Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria to try to prove that Ottawa is pro-Palestinian Authority.

But Harper’s words and actions are nothing of the sort, and the Palestinian Authority has not forgiven Harper’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird for going to the United Nations to declare Ottawa’s opposition to Abbas’ appeal for statehood by declaring that “unilateral actions” are not part of the “peace process.”

Harper said in Ramallah on Monday, “Canada looks forward to a bright future for all Palestinians, one in which security and prosperity are enjoyed in a viable and democratic Palestinian state. The support we are providing today will advance those goals by furthering the peace process, generating jobs and economic growth through private sector partnerships, and helping to further advance security and justice sector reforms.”

Not one word was said about “settlements.”

He told a news conference his stand is “Canadian” and not pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli. When a reporter tried to pin him down on Judea and Samaria, he replied. “I will not single out Israel on this trip.”

The “Jewish vote” in Canada is far from serious enough to make Harper pro-Israel

His backing for Israel, including clearly stated support for Israel’s counter-terrorist campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza, simply is based on what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in his welcoming speech Sunday night, when he explained that Harper “expresses a clear and courageous moral position with regard to the truth and to the necessary criteria in the international community toward Israel and the conflict here.”

Harper announced his trip to Israel last month when he spoke at a Jewish National Fund dinner.

At the of his speech, the Prime Minister showed off his musical talents and brought in his Herringbone to back him up with impressive renditions of songs from The Who, Rolling Stones and the Beatles, as seen in a brief segment below.

Former Israeli ambassador to Canada Alan Baker and prominent Toronto lawyers have condemned an apparent discrepancy between Ottawa’s fervid public support for Israel and official policy.

Baker, who served as Israel’s ambassador to Canada from 2004 to 2008, and six Toronto lawyers, have written to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird demanding the Foreign Affairs Department website be changed “to align it with statements and policies publicly expressed by the Prime Minister, yourself and other government representatives,” the National Post newspaper reported.

The complaint comes on the eve of a high-profile visit by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper next week.

The attorneys are particularly upset that the website refers to Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as “occupied territories” and declares the construction of Jewish communities and parts of the separation barrier inside those areas as illegal.

“Parts of this policy statement appear to run counter to the Canadian expressions of support for Israel and its positions,” the group wrote, “as well as against specific statements repeatedly made by Prime Minister Harper and Foreign Minister Baird.”

Information on the Foreign Affairs website reflects long-standing Canadian policy, which comports with the widely accepted international view that the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are occupied territory because they were restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967.

In response, Baird’s spokesman, Rick Roth, said Harper and his Conservative government “have articulated Canada’s policy on Israel and the Middle East at great length since 2006.

“Israel has no greater friend in the world than Canada,” Roth told the Post, “and it is through our actions, not just words, that this rings true.”

A trailer full of milk, apparently having come from a nearby kibbutz, failed to negotiate a turn at the Alon Shvut junction in Gush Etzion and turned over on its side.

A security camera recorded the accident, which left the driver with light injuries but enough to be send him to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.

The video shows the trucker was driving too fast. As for the milk, there wasn’t much to do but cry.

Suspected right-wing Jewish vandals set a mosque in the Arab village of Deit Istiya in Samaria on fire late Tuesday night and painted graffiti on the mosque’s wall with hate messages such as “Revenge for spilled blood in Kusra,” referring to the village where Arabs brutally beat a group of Jews last week after the Jews were spotted walking towards the village.

The village’s mayor, Ayyub Abu Hijlah, told the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency that local residents saw the fire before it got out of control, limiting the damage to the mosque’s doors. The residents said they chased away Jews who had set fire to the building.