Free Republic

Israeli report says developments violate agreements; guards say the chief security officer is establishing ‘a militia’ The US Consulate in Jerusalem is training a force of 35 Palestinians from East Jerusalem to serve as armed guards, particularly for consular trips to the West Bank’s Area A, which is off-limits to Israelis, it was reported on Wednesday. The arrangement violates a 2011 agreement between Israel and the consulate, the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth stated, whereby only IDF combat veterans would be authorized to carry arms as consulate guards. “The consulate was authorized to keep roughly 100 handguns for security staff, on...

Jerusalem - Jewish settlers attacked American consular officials Friday during a visit the officials made to the West Bank as part of an investigation into claims of damage to Palestinian agricultural property, Israeli police and Palestinian witnesses say. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that a small number of settlers threw rocks at officials who had come to an area near the Jewish settlement outpost of Adi Ad in two consular vehicles to look into Palestinian claims that settlers uprooted scores of Palestinian olive trees the day before. He said that after the rock barrage began, the vehicles left the area,...

The full details of Friday's clash between residents of the Jewish village of Adei Ad in Samaria and a delegation from the US Consulate in Jerusalem - which very nearly escalated into a fully-fledged shootout between the sides - are still emerging. But those details which have emerged so far paint a worrying picture regarding the conduct of Consulate staff - who either willingly took part in a planned provocation, or else, in a staggering show of irresponsibility and unprofessionalism, recklessly blundered into a volatile and potentially deadly situation without the slightest idea of what they were doing. Roughly two...

Acting Head of the Samaria Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, has filed a request to the Minister of the Interior Gilad Erdan demanding he immediately expel the American Consulate staff members who entered the Samaria village of Adei Ad Friday and threatened Israeli Jews with an M-16. "As revealed through Wikileaks few years ago, these supposed 'officials' are intelligence agents and spies in every respect," said Dagan, adding "this time, they went too far and participated in a provocative tour with the Palestinians in the southern Samaria and north Binyamin, without any coordination as required with the IDF and police, and...

A confrontation broke out between security personnel from the American consulate and settlers from the Adei Ad outpost in the West Bank on Friday, after settlers hurled stones at two vehicles from the consulate. According to both Palestinian and settler sources, the American security guards drew their weapons at the settlers. A preliminary police investigation of the clashes between American security personnel and Israeli settlers discovered the consulate employees had arrived at the Adei Ad outpost in Samaria without coordination with the appropriate defense officials. An official from the village of Turmus Ayya, near the scene of the incident, said...

Palestinian Authority Arabs showed up at the Jewish village of Adei Ad on Monday to harvest olives – olives from trees that were planted and nurtured by local Jewish farmers. The PA group was accompanied by PA police, who stood watch as the harvesters gathered Adei Ad’s produce. Residents of Adei Ad explained that the trees were planted years ago, and that PA Arabs recently filed a claim for ownership, arguing that an Arab family owns the land the trees were planted on. Local Jews say the claim of land ownership is false. The trees in question are located just...