Palestinian snipers fired on farmers and, well, anyone else within sight of their scopes. Gee. Wonder where they got the high-powered sniper rifles and scopes?

In any case, they almost hit an Israeli minister. And they’re claiming to be al Qaeda. I’m calling bullshit on the intentional targeting of the minister. Unless they had his agenda, they didn’t know he’d be there. They got lucky.

Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter’s personal assistant was lightly to moderately injured Friday by gunshots fired by Palestinians at the minister’s entourage visiting the Nizmit hill near Kibbutz Nir Am in southern Israel.

“The army of the nation”, a new organization affiliated with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the sniper fire. Hamas’ military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, also took responsibility for the attack along with an unknown organization called “the al-Aqsa defenders.”

Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas’ military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said Friday afternoon that the internal security minister was the target of the attack.

“An organization sniper fired at a group of Israelis, including Minister Dichter. The Mujahideen ambushed Minister Dichter’s entourage and began firing at it, injuring the minister’s assistant. The operation was targeted at the minister himself,” he said.

It was not. It was targeting large groups of people in the hopes of hitting one. Again, luck.

The minister was hosting a group of managers from the Canada-Israel Committee (CIC), a pro-Israel lobby group, who visited the observation tower in the Gaza vicinity area in order to examine the threat on Israel, receiving a live demonstration. According to estimates, a Palestinian sniper fired the shots.

The observation tower, which overlooks the northern Gaza Strip from Ashkelon to the al-Bureij and al-Marazi refugee camp in the heart of the Strip, is considered a popular hiking site.

Earlier, Palestinian fired at farmers in Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. There were no reports of injuries. Some 30 youths from the Kibbutz Movement arrived at the area Friday morning in order to assist the farmers in their work. Large army forces secured the activity.

Luck. Large groups, luck, and lies. Typical Palestinian bullshit. And you have to love the AP spin on events:

The attack was the second in recent weeks in which a Dichter aide has been hurt in an attack. In late February, a bodyguard was lightly wounded in a rocket assault on southern Israel as he prepared for the minister to visit.

Gaza militants have bombarded Israeli border communities with rockets since late 2001, killing 13 people, severely disrupting daily life and provoking sometimes harsh Israeli retaliation. With Egyptian mediation, however, there has been a lull in violence in recent weeks.

Separately, Gaza militants Friday opened fire on farmers working in the fields of a communal farm, or kibbutz, near northern Gaza, Ein Hashlosha. No one was hurt.

Three months ago, an Ecuadorean volunteer at the kibbutz was killed by Palestinian sniper fire.

So apparently, a rocket attack and three sniper attacks, resulting in two injuries and one death, is a “lull” in violence.

The AFP considers rocket attacks part of the “truce“:

For nearly a month, Israel and armed groups in Gaza appear to be observing a tacit truce. That has led to a drastic drop in the number of rockets fired and of Israeli attacks against the Palestinian enclave run by Hamas.

Uh-huh. A “tacit” truce, in which rocket fire only drops, but does not stop. And those are Israeli “attacks,” not operations aimed at stopping the rocket fire and terror attacks. No, there’s no anti-Israel media bias. None at all.

Believe it or not, Reuters was the most evenhanded of the major services. Check the sky for flying pigs.

Way to go, guys. Give Israel’s enemies ammunition to prove that Israel is racist, by being racist assholes.

Four months after harrowing accounts of discrimination against Ethiopian students, Ynet has reported that the parents’ associations of the three largest state religious schools in Petah Tikva plan to shut down these aforementioned institutions next week to protest what they call “outright discrimination by private schools in the city as well as the Petah Tikva municipality.” Other state religious schools might also join in this boycott.

On Sunday, the school day at the city’s three major state religious schools will begin at 10am, and starting Tuesday, the Petah Tikva Parents’ Association has announced that it would suspend studies indefinitely to protest the fact that religious private schools in the city are not accepting their fair share of Ethiopian pupils. The boycott will affect the Morasha School, Ma’alot Chaim school, and the Kfar Ganim School which have a total combined number of 2,000 pupils.

This is shameful. Refusing to accept Ethiopian pupils? And the reason would be….?

I’d love to say this is a one-time thing. But there appears to be a pattern of discrimination against Ethiopian Jews by certain religious schools in this town.

These Ethiopian immigrants were consequently placed in a separate classroom at the very end of the school corridor. One teacher alone was allotted for teaching them all of the various academic subjects. Moreover, the girls were assigned different recess hours to their peers, and given cab fare home so that they would not “overly socialize” with the rest of the girls.

The girls’ parents immediately noticed that their children were lonely, depressed and less than eager to go to school. “We do not understand what we did wrong, what crime we’re guilty of. Is this only because we are black?” they asked Ethiopian activist Daniel Uriah, who tried to speak to the principal on their behalf and was unceremoniously kicked out of the school building. Uriah then met with the director of the education administration, who told him that “the school in question is elitist and the girls must learn how to behave if they would like to fit in.”

Uriah next turned to Deputy Mayor of Petach Tikva, Paltiel Aisenthal of the National Union-National Religious Party. At a joint meeting with the girls’ parents, Aidenthal glibly stated: “Don’t worry about it. We know what is best for the girls. It is no big deal if they are separated from their peers.”

Unacceptable. Unacceptable actions, unacceptable answers.

I normally do not write about subjects like this. There are more than enough Israel-bashers out there, and while I read all of the news, positive and negative, I prefer not to get into the disagreements on various subjects (particularly the “Who is a Jew” argument). But this? If there is anything other than racism behind this story, I’m at a loss to figure it out.

A Jew is a Jew is a Jew. The Ethiopians are black-skinned? That won’t stop Hamas and Hezbullah from murdering them because they’re Jewish.