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...sidebars:
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...
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 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... Additionally, Israeli guards at the consulate alleged that the Palestinians were being trained with firearms in Jericho at a Palestinian Preventative Security base and in the United States... The US Consulate denied a Times of Israel request to speak with Cronin and declined to directly address the assertions in the article... He would not detail the alleged inaccuracies. The Israeli security guards, three of whom reportedly quit in protest, asserted that the consulate also keeps machine guns and rifles on the premises, further violating the alleged agreement, and that one senior staff member had served time in Israeli prison for membership in the Fatah organization.
Good catch.
Very good catch!