A Palestinian Authority news agency has bested itself for Best Fiction of the Year Award by blaming the IDF for forcing a local Muslim to drink wine at gunpoint after he supposedly refused to supply information on who was throwing rocks at Israeli motorists.
It is great story. Once again the Occupation Army humiliates Palestinian Authority Arabs, violates their rights and subjugates them to embarrassment and immoral behavior.
This one was so far-fetched that even foreign media and Israel’s leftist newspapers and radio channels ignored it.
The only place the story could be found on the Internet, other than the original source of the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency, was the Saudi Gazette.
Just to make sure, the Jewish Press asked the IDF to investigate and find out if there was any truth to the story, which of course, was a work of fiction.
The alleged incident occurred in a village called Beit Ummar, located on Highway 60 between Jerusalem and Kiryat Arba-Hebron. The highway is the only direct link between Jerusalem and the southern Hebron Hills. The village is infested with Hamas activists, and one of the favorite pastimes of the locals is to hurl firebombs and rocks at Israeli cars, almost every day.
According to the Ma’an news agency report, “Israeli intelligence officers forced a Palestinian man from Beit Ummar to drink wine at gunpoint on Tuesday evening.”
It even named the man, Muhammad Khalil Abu Dayyah (24). The source for this great piece of journalism is the village’s “committee against Israel’s separation wall and settlements.”
The soldiers allegedly humiliated Muhammad because he refused to cooperate and tell the “names of young men who participate in clashes against Israeli forces.”
The soldier than supposedly pointed a gun at the back of his hand and told him to drink a bottle of wine.
The next chapter of this saga is even more chilling. The young man passed out for an hour and then the soldiers woke up him and threw him out of the guard tower where he has been taken into custody.
Great stuff.
And if anyone doubts that it is true, Ma’an added that an Arab eyewitness confirmed that Muhammad “appeared under the influence and smelling of alcohol.”
By the way, the “one hour” became “two hours” in the Saudi Gazette’s version of this story. The newspaper the reminded its reader of other IDF crimes in previous years – “a female Israeli soldier forced a Palestinian to drink a bottle of cleaning fluid at gunpoint, [and] in two other incidents, the soldiers forced Palestinian youths to drink their urine and sewage water.”
It took the IDF more than eight hours to draw up a response to the incident for the Jewish Press, and a military spokeswoman explained that the IDF wanted to make sure that all details were checked and that the necessary authorities approved the answer, which follows:
“After reviewing the incident, all indications show that the described event did not occur. Yesterday, a Palestinian who was apparently inebriated approached an army post near Beit Ummar. Using minimal, non-aggressive measures, IDF forces moved him away from the spot.”
“Military Sources: No active engagements took place between IDF forces and locals in the area in question during the last 48 hours.”
Now, let’s say the IDF is lying. Let’s say the soldiers really did force the Arab Muslim to get drunk. One question: Where did the bottle of wine come from? Is it part of the IDF equipment, along with the communications equipment, protective vest, rifle, canteen, cartridges and helmet?
Or maybe the canteen was filled with wine?
No, that won’t work, because it was a bottle of wine that was drunk. So the bottle was packed into a jeep, between the fire extinguisher and first aid equipment. carefully protected so it would not break?
The story really does not end here.
It is a daily story, with Ma’an and other Palestinian Authority news agencies reporting virtually every day that the IDF arrested or shot or attacked a mentally ill person, a pregnant women, a retarded child, a handicapped man or an elderly woman.
If one were to add up all of the wounded in these these stories , he or she would discover that all others, except for pregnant women, the elderly, the handicapped and the mentally ill – make up a tiny minority of the Palestinian Authority population.
Reader Elihu Stone pointed out to us that poor Muhammad Khalil Abu Dayyah has had a run of bad luck lately.
Other Ma’an articles over the past few months have reported that Muhammad Khalil Abu Dayyah was shot in the chest with rubber bullets during a funeral procession in February, also near Beit Ummar, and that Muhammad Khalil Abu Dayyah was detained overnight in April, in nearby Hebron.
With all that bad press, it’s no wonder he took up drinking, .