The Palestinians and the Arab world have come up with some pretty outlandish claims regarding Israeli hostility toward them. These have included assertions that Israeli soldiers hand out poisoned candies to Palestinian children and that the Mossad trained sharks to attack Arabs in Sinai.

See related: Winged Mossad Agent Captured Over Saudi Arabia

They were at it again last week with a claim that Israel had somehow trained cows to spy on a Palestinian village.

“These are recruited and trained cattle. On the neck of each cow they [the Israelis] hang a medallion with an eavesdropping and recording device on it, and sometimes cameras, in order to monitor every detail in [the Palestinian village of] Khirbet Yanun large and small,” said village elder Rushd Morrar, in a statement translated by Palestinian Media Watch.

Morrar also told the official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida that local Jews “release herds of wild boars” to destroy Palestinian agriculture. Now that would be something – Jews using un-kosher pigs to do their bidding!

Granting legitimacy to these ridiculous claims is the fact that the Palestinian and wider Arab media happily run with the stories, as if they were legitimate news reports.