This is what stands for teaching in a high school in Italy:

The Jewish community in Torino, Italy, has demanded the dismissal of a high school teacher who has been teaching students that Israel has no right to exist and that it should be removed from the map, Israel Radio reported on Thursday.

According to the community’s complaint, the teacher has voiced support in his classes for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s calls for the destruction of Israel and has recommended that his students read Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

The Italian Education Ministry has opened an investigation into the matter.

Words fail.

So, let’s take the word “truce.” It generally means a cessation of hostilities. Both sides agree to stop killing each other. Right? Right. A truce is when people actually stop, you know, shooting.

Now let us take this AP headline:

Palestinian cease-fire holds despite factional shootings

Do AP editors have absolutely no shame whatsoever? Do they think we are as stupid as they think we are?

Well, yes. Let’s look at the lede.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Palestinian gunmen opened fire at Hamas officials early today in separate attacks, marring efforts to shore up a truce that brought relative quiet to Gaza after days of deadly factional violence.

However, the three-day old cease-fire appeared to hold in the face of the shootings.

Early Thursday, unknown gunmen opened fire at Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum as he drove with three bodyguards in his white sedan toward an impromptu checkpoint near Gaza City, Hamas said. There were no casualties. A Hamas announcement blamed “coup-seekers,” meaning militants from the rival Fatah party.

“This is a violation of the (truce) agreement,” Barhoum said. He reported the incident to Egyptian mediators and the gunmen removed their checkpoint, he said.

Later Thursday, gunmen in a car shot at Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for a Hamas militia, Shahwan said, blaming the shooting on Fatah-affiliated security officers. One Hamas member was wounded, he said.

They even have a quote from a Hamas spokesman saying the truce is being violated, and yet, the AP insists, the truce is “holding.”

And so does Reuters!

Hamas ambushes Gaza convoy, four dead
Hamas gunmen ambushed what the Islamic group said was a convoy carrying weapons to Mahmoud Abbas’s presidential guard in the Gaza Strip on Thursday and four people were killed, residents said.

Abbas’s Fatah faction said the four-truck convoy, which crossed into Gaza from Israel, was carrying medical equipment and tents, and accused Hamas of plunging a 3-day-old Palestinian ceasefire into “grave danger.”

It’s unbelievable.

Another 10 people were wounded in northern Gaza when Hamas raided a military intelligence post. Hamas said their forces came under fire first.

And finally, we have the latest update, when the AP is forced to admit that the “truce” is no longer:

Palestinian Cease-Fire Dissolves; 4 Dead
Gunfights between Hamas and Fatah gunmen erupted across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing four people, wounding several others and effectively destroying a three-day truce that brought a brief period of quiet to the volatile area.

Hamas militants fired mortar shells near Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ residence in Gaza City and nearby street battles sent residents fleeing in terror. Some left their cars idling while they sought shelter.

Masked gunmen took up positions on rooftops, while others took cover in alleyways below. Abbas was not in Gaza at the time.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Call it a cease-fire until there’s open warfare.

These are the media outlets that supply most of the English-speaking world with print news.

Scary thought, really. They can’t even tell the difference between truce and war.

The British Muslim problem, combined with with their vehemently anti-Israel lefties like Ken Livingstone and Yvonne Ridley, has managed to bring anti-Semitic attacks in Britain up to record highs. Congratulations, Britain, the multicultural icon of Europe, for proving that even multiculturalism runs with the Exception Clause: Everyone is tolerated, except the Jews.

“British Jews are stupidly blamed and randomly attacked over international tensions for which they bear no responsibility,” Gardner said.

British Jewish leaders say attacks have risen steadily since 2000 with Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks warning that “a tsunami of anti-Semitism” was sweeping across Europe.

Gardner said last year’s incidents peaked during the month-long war between Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon which started in July, adding the spike then was specifically anti-Semitic and not just anger with Israel.

And it looks like the Arabs have learned the Ahmadinejad lesson:

Gardner said four of the incidents last year were potentially life-threatening. A Jewish man was stabbed in London, others were beaten with metal bars and broken bottles.

“I want to kill all Jews and my name is Hitler,” one Arab shouted before punching an Orthodox Jew in the face at a London underground railway station and trying to push him off the platform.

Unbelievable. Except it’s not.

The rest of the article is filled with ReutersSpeak, downplaying the threat.

Gravestones were desecrated, synagogues daubed with slogans and hate mail sent to a Jewish member of parliament.

Gardner said: “This is certainly not comparable with the 1930s or anything remotely like that. But anti-Semitism should be judged by the same standards as any other standards that British citizens enjoy.”

Sure, it’s not anything like the 1930s. Except Jews aren’t safe in their homes, on the subway, on the streets, in their schools, or in their synagogues. All right, let’s be fair. The difference is, the government isn’t behind the attacks. Unless you count George Galloway and Ken Livingstone among the inciters.

A representative of the Lebanese Daily Star responds to my last post on what I am calling the Poisoned Zionist Balloons:

You are right to point out how absurd it is for Lebanese to get so paranoid about a few balloons drifting over the border. However, you missed the point about why The Daily Star decided to run the story (and please note that we ran it on the inside pages, not on the front page like most of the Arabic press in Lebanon.) The story is newsworthy because the balloons sparked so much panic here in Lebanon. We made a conscious effort to report the story as what it was - unfounded hysteria. The point we were tyring to get across is that there is a deep level of mistrust among Lebanese toward Israelis, a feeling that was amplified in the wake of a deadly war last summer. We have limited space and maneuvering room to make this point with a news story, where our job is simply to report the facts, unlike a commentary or an editorial. Bloggers, on the other hand, have an open and free forum, and could potentially play a greater role in building trust, instead of belitting a terrified population and adding fuel to the fires of animosity.

Kristin Dailey

My response (posted here, not in the comments):

It seems to me that if you were interested in reducing panic you might have led your news article with the fact that the ballons were not toxic in any way. It took you sixteen paragraphs to get to the results of the UN tests, and you put the lack of evidence into scare quotes.

Preliminary tests run by Italian troops in the UNIFIL and by experts in the Lebanese Army tests showed “no evidence” of dangerous substances in the balloons.

The story may have been about the panic in Lebanon—and take no pride in running it on the inside pages, because you eased no paranoid fears by doing so—but that doesn’t excuse the fact that every single person you quoted in the article comes off sounding like a paranoid lunatic.

It isn’t I that needs to work on building up trust between Israelis and Lebanese. Perhaps you may want to look in your own back yard, particularly at the terrorists that run a state-within-a-state in the country.

The fact that the Lebanese were terrified by a few promotional balloons that drifted over the border from Israel speaks more to the paranoia and hatred in Lebanese society than anything.

I tend to mock things that are worthy of mocking. A supposedly civilized nation that accuses Israel of filling balloons with poison gas in an attempt to—what, target innocent civilians?—is definitely worth mocking.

The source said more comprehensive tests on the Israeli balloons will continue for the next two days to check “for chemicals and minerals” that the balloons may be carrying or are made of.

Yes, that’s right. Check the chemical makeup of the balloons, because those evil Zionists can’t be trusted. Why, the next thing you know, they’ll say that Arafat was poisoned by Zionists or something.

Please. The paranoid rants of the Lebanese over a bunch of green balloons is the real humor here, not my post.