[To read the full, original post from 4 January 2015, with the complete set of illustrations, please visit it at The Optimistic Conservative site.]
Some of the basic things America is losing with the onset of the Obama administration are sanity and common sense in our diplomatic representation abroad.
An unfortunate example of this decline occurred on Friday, when some of our own “Jerusalem consulate personnel” were reportedly attacked by Israeli “settlers” throwing stones, during a visit by the Americans to the site of an alleged “settler attack” on the olive trees of a Palestinian Arab grower in the West Bank.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said no one was hurt and the American security team had not drawn their weapons. Earlier reports had indicated that American security staff had done so; settlers were quoted saying the security personnel had drawn an M-16 and a pistol.
“We can confirm a vehicle from the Consulate General was pelted with stones and confronted by a group of armed settlers today in the West Bank, near the Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya,” he said.
“Our personnel were in the area looking into reports that settlers had uprooted some 5,000 olive tree saplings in that area in recent days,” he said, adding that the visit had been cancelled after the attack.
Now, hold it right there. We can certainly question the wisdom of roaming foreign territory, making independent inquiries into criminal allegations about property damage. We can question what exactly gives us a charter to do that (especially without having coordinated the visit with the local authorities first. See more here).
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But even before getting to that question, we have to question the wisdom of “investigating” one of these recurring, unsubstantiated allegations about settlers attacking Palestinian olive trees. Researching the matter reveals that the “information theme” about it is a big racket.
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