Today I learned that Wikipedia has an entry devoted to nothing but animal-related conspiracy theories centering around Israel.
For example, the entry notes that in 2010 a series of shark attacks off the coast of the South Sinai were alleged to be Israeli acts of aggression,
Following the attacks, in an interview on Tawfik Okasha’s popular but controversial Egypt Today television show, a Captain Mustafa Ismail, introduced as “a famous diver,” alleged that the GPS tracking device found on one of the sharks was in fact a “guiding device” planted by Israeli agents. Prompted in a television interview for comments, the governor of South Sinai, Mohammad Abdul Fadhil Shousha, initially said: “What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark [in the sea] to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question. But it needs time to confirm.” The Israeli foreign ministry, in response, suggested that Shousha had seen “Jaws one time too many.” The governor later dismissed the event as being connected to Israel.
Okay, some crazy guy with a TV show spouts conspiracy theories. In America, we call that Glenn Beck. But in 2008, the official Palestinian news agency accused Israel of employing “supernatural rats” to drive Arab residents from the Old City of Jerusalem,
In July 2008, the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, accused Israel of using “supernatural rats” that “can even chase away Arab cats” to encourage Arab residents of the Old City of Jerusalem to flee in panic. “Over the past two months, dozens of settlers come to the alleyways and streets of the Old City carrying iron cages full of rats,” Wafa claimed. “They release the rats, which find shelter in open sewage systems.” Jerusalem Municipality spokesman Gidi Schmerling rejected the report as “pure fiction.”
Okay, then. In America we would never believe this sort of nonsense. Rather, in this country it is Bill Belichick who uses the supernatural rats to spy on visiting teams.