One of 4,000 ‘terrorist’ dolls intercepted by Haifa Port customs officials. Photo: Haifa Port customs.

The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont recently reported on the seizure, by Israeli Custom officials, of thousands of stone-throwing dolls with keffiyahs saying “Jerusalem is ours” and “Jerusalem we are coming.”

The shipment, Beaumont noted, “was found last week hidden among other goods coming into the port at Haifa,” and was purportedly “shipped from a supplier in the United Arab Emirates.”

The report quoted Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely as follows:

These dolls were making their way to the Palestinian Authority with one clear purpose, and that was to poison the minds of innocent children. The Palestinians are continuing to incite their youth using any means necessary to educate them about violence and hatred. Here, it’s in the form of a doll.

Beaumont then wrote:

Despite her claim, it was not entirely clear who the recipient was intended to be.

However, multiple news reports on the incident cited comments from the Haifa Customs inspectors’ confirming that the dolls were indeed heading to the Palestinian Authority.

A report in USA Today noted that Haifa Customs inspectors “found the dolls in a container that was supposed to hold rugs and plastic items shipped from the UAE to the West Bank via Israel.”

Additionally, a NBC News report on December 9, more than a week before Beaumont’s piece was published, quoted the head of Enforcement for Haifa Customs (Doron Samara) saying that “this shipment was intended to reach the Palestinian Authority.”

Indeed, nobody even vaguely familiar with the PA’s ongoing campaign of incitement would be surprised at all to learn that Palestinian children were the intended recipient.

Commenting on the dolls, Palestinian Media Watch observed:

The rock-throwing doll fits the PA and Fatah’s policy of promoting violence and glorifying terrorists in general, and its clear support for the current wave of terror attacks and murder of Israelis in particular. One PLO official honored murderers of a young couple as performing a “national duty” and a PA official openly praised all the recent murderers.

Throughout the current wave of violence, the PA and Fatah have continuously promoted rock-throwing in the official PA daily, on Fatah’s Facebook page and Fatah’s Twitter.