Ziad al-Saad says the manuscripts were reportedly found by a Bedouin. He says the relics could be among the earliest Christian writings in existence but tests are under way to date them and check their authenticity.

Al-Saad said on Tuesday that if verified, the relics could be the most significant find in Christian archaeology since the 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In one small quote, the Associate Press adds to the delegitimization of Judaism, as well as the delegitimization of Israel, by passing along the lie that the Dead Sea Scrolls are “Christian archeology.”

From Wikipedia:

Most scholars deny any connection between the Christians and the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is little to suggest that the Christians at this time were as secluded or as interested in elaborate rituals of purity and chastity as the community that produced the Scrolls.[citation needed] Still, Spanish Jesuit Josep O’Callaghan-Martínez has argued that one fragment (7Q5) preserves a portion of text from the New Testament Gospel of Mark 6:52-53.[35] In recent years, Robert Eisenman has advanced the theory that some scrolls actually describe the early Christian community. Eisenman also attempted to relate the career of James the Just and the Apostle Paul / Paul of Tarsus to some of these documents.[36]

Just take a look at the number of scrolls concerning Jewish texts—which would be, oh, all of them—and only someone trying to minimize Jewish history in the region would call the scrolls “Christian archeology.” And of course, the AP blithely passes along this misinformation, contrary to its own standards.

But they’re ready for a state now: The Palestinians continue to demonize and disappear Israel in their textbooks. Can you imagine a “Palestine” next to Israel that continues to teach its children to hate Israelis? You probably don’t have to work very hard to do it, because there’s no sign that the money machine is going to stop anytime soon, and European and American donors are responsible for things like this.

We do not think that word means what you think it means: The Vanguard Leadership Group, a leadership development academy and honor society for top students from mostly-black colleges and universities in America, have sent a letter to colleges all over the U.S. telling them to stop using the word “apartheid” to describe Israel. (Here’s the full text of the letter.) In other news, heads exploded on the anti-Israel left as the Israel-haters tried to figure out a way of discrediting the letter without attacking the Vanguard Leadership Group. Blacks and Jews, together again. Kudos to the VLG. The letter is directed to the SJP. My prediction: The racism of their states of origin is going to come out in subtle ways against this. Arab states are notoriously racist towards their darker-skinned people, a fact that is almost always ignored by the media.

The AP media bias strikes again: Where in the first five paragraphs is there a description of Goldstone saying that he was wrong about Israeli deliberately targeting civilians? Paragraph five, which usually won’t make it into your local paper’s World News section. Paragraphs one, two, and three? Oh, they’re all about the Goldstone Committee striking back and insisting that Israel committed war crimes galore.

And the Arab League, using the newly-issued R2P (responsibility to protect) hobbyhorse, wants the UN to authorize a no-fly zone over Gaza. Because responding to rockets being fired into your country is just like a dictator forcibly putting down citizen protests calling for his removal. The hypocrisy is just super-duper today, because that very same dictator is a member of the Arab League. He was unavailable for voting, due to the fact that he is currently trying to murder the citizens who want him to step down from his dictatorship. Doubtless, however, Muammar Ghaddafy would vote for the no-fly zone over Gaza.

Oh, and Turkey is condemning the use of excessive force. That’s a good one. Heard any good Kurd jokes lately?

Of course, the media are all blaming Israel for the “violence.” Here’s the new AP boilerplate, which takes the Hamas line that this is all Israel’s fault:

The violence escalated a week ago when an Israeli airstrike killed three Hamas militants who Israel said were planning a cross-border kidnapping. On Thursday, Hamas militants fired a guided anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, wounding the two people on board, including a teenage boy who was critically hurt.

Since Thursday, Palestinians fired more than 120 rockets and mortars into southern Israel, prompting a series of Israeli reprisals that have killed 19 Palestinians, including six civilians, and wounded 65 others. It has been the most intense fighting between Israel and Gaza militants since a major Israeli offensive in the Palestinian territory ended in January 2009.

Missing from the story is the fact that Hamas has been firing rockets steadily into Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead, and that less than three weeks before this latest “violence,” Hamas fired fifty mortars in one day. But absolutely, it’s Israel’s fault—for trying to stop terrorists before they get anothr Gilad Shalit to hold in a hole somewhere for years.

Amazingly, Reuters has the right cause-and-effect in its lead.

Israel and the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers signaled on Sunday they were looking to end a flare-up in violence that began four days ago with a missile attack on an Israeli school bus and has claimed the lives of 19 Palestinians.

Color me shocked.

The BBC counts the Palestinian casualties as just plain “people.” And they cast doubt on the reasons behind Israel’s response:

At least 18 people have died in Israeli air strikes, which it says have been in response to militant rocket fire.

[...] Several civilians were among those killed in the following Israeli air strikes. Dozens of people have been wounded.

This is the only number I can find in the BBC story.

Although three mortar shells were fired by Palestinian militants overnight this was a sharp drop from previous days

There have been over 120 rockets and mortars fired into Israel since Thursday, including many Grad rockets towards Israel’s cities that are being stopped by the Iron Dome defense system.

The shooting has not stopped, in spite of Hamas now saying that they’re really ready for a truce. Ehud Barak says that 750,000 citizens in bomb shelters is unacceptable. So this current round may not be over. And if the IDF does go into Gaza, those evil Israelis are going in with new maps that show them sensitive areas like schools and UN buildings that should not be attacked.

The list included hospitals, United Nations facilities, schools, power grids, flour mills, food storage centers and various homes and office buildings.

Senior IDF officers have told The Jerusalem Post that new maps being drafted by the Gaza Division in the Southern Command ahead of a possible future operation in Gaza now include more than 3,000 sites that are off-limits to attacks.

The most moral army in the world? You bet your ass they are. The difference between Hamas and Israel can be counted in those two paragraphs. Hamas deliberately targets school buses. Israel marks civilian sites as off-limits. Which one got the brunt of the Goldstone Report? Why, of course the one that tries to prevent civilian casualties. That’s Israeli Double Standard Time, defined.

Meanwhile, the IDF continues to hunt down rocket -aunching cells, which military officials say are operating out of civilian population centers and taking cover in densely crowded areas.

“When Palestinian civilians are killed in these kinds of strikes, the population should only complain to Hamas, which continues to turn its own citizens into a protective vest,” a military official said earlier.

Hamas is claiming it wants a truce. It doesn’t seem to want it that badly, however:

Since Thursday, terror groups in Gaza fired more than 70 rockets, mortar shells and missiles at southern Israel communities. Several rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-rocket system.

Hiding among civilians is their favorite tactic. They’re making triply sure there will be civilian casualties now.

The army said that terrorists in Gaza are making use of public buildings in their attacks and are operating in crowded population centers. A video published by the IDF Spokesman’s Office documented a strike on a rocket launcher hidden in a Gaza cemetery. Several Palestinian civilians were hurt in the attack.

The AP tried for objectivity. Truly, they did. I can tell that they’ve been working harder these days. They even changed their Gaza War boilerplate, which no longer says “at least half civilians” when discussing casualties. The lead of the story is almost objective.

Palestinian militants fired more than a dozen rockets at southern Israel on Saturday and Israeli warplanes killed four militants in the Gaza Strip in the most intense fighting since Israel’s 2008-2009 offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory.

The escalating series of strikes and counterstrikes has killed 18 Gazans since it began on Thursday and the continuing clashes are increasing the probability of a full-scale military confrontation.

Israeli officials said the airstrikes would continue as long as the rocket attacks persist. Hamas officials insisted they were trying to restore quiet, but said they were prepared to fight.

They failed.

The AP story includes three named spokesmen for Hamas, and none for Israel, although it does quote an Israeli analyst on why Israel retaliates for the rocket attacks. Yes, really. Because that’s the kind of reporting that only a professional can do!

The biggest failure, however, is the description of the last two years of attacks by Hamas.

After two years of relative calm, the situation began to escalate last weekend when an airstrike killed three Palestinian militants who Israel said were plotting to carry out a cross-border kidnapping. On Thursday, Hamas militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli schoolbus, wounding two people on board, including a teenage boy.

“Relative calm” includes hundreds of rockets fired into Israel, including over 50 rockets on one day last month. The weak response to that is probably part of the reason Hamas thought it could get away with murdering schoolchildren. By the way, in case you were unaware of this, if the attack had taken place a few minutes earlier, thirty children would have been on that bus.

The AP tallies the rocket attacks which will, doubtless, be ignored in next year’s end of the “relative calm” report:

Gaza militants fired 17 Grad-style Katyusha rockets and seven mortar shells into Israel Saturday in what Israeli police said was the biggest single-day bombardment since the Gaza war.

Several missiles fell in uninhabited areas near the southern Israeli cities of Ashkelon and Beersheba, while seven were intercepted by Israel’s new missile shield, Iron Dome. There were no reports of injuries.

Oh, by the way—Hamas is now saying it didn’t mean to target a school bus.

Liars.

The school bus was traveling in southern Israel near the Gaza border when it was hit by a type of anti-tank missile known as a Kornet, said Israeli military spokesman Capt. Barak Raz. The Kornet is a Russian-made anti-tank guided missile system that is thought to have a maximum range of 5 1/2 kilometers (3 1/2 miles).

The Kornet anti-tank missile was supplied by Iran to Hizbollah and used to great effect in the 2006 Lebanon war. It is now obviously being supplied to Hamas. Israel has developed and used successfully a defense system for its tanks, but nobody ever thought that a schoolbus needed anti-tank missile defenses. Nobody outside of the subhumans that make up the terrorists groups trying to destroy Israel, anyway.

Israeli aircraft and ground forces struck Gaza on Friday, killing three Hamas militants and three civilians in a surge of fighting sparked by a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli school bus the day before.

Even the AP is pointing out that it wasn’t a directionless mortar, but a laser-guided anti-tank missile that terrorists used to make a sure hit on the bus. The Washington Post and CNN have also highlighted that fact, although the CNN update has since dropped the important factor that this was a deliberate, laser-guided anti-tank missile attack on a bus presumably filled with schoolchildren. That’s a pretty important fact to drop, considering the deliberate targeting of children is the reason the IDF is still bombing Gaza as I write this post.

In Thursday’s attack, Gaza militants hit an Israeli school bus near the border with a guided anti-tank missile, injuring the driver and badly wounding a 16-year-old boy. Most of the schoolchildren on the bus got off shortly before the attack.

You can see pictures of the bus at most of the links.  It’s quite clearly a yellow schoolbus, of the kind used throughout the world to denote “This bus is filled with children on their way to and from school.” There is no way the terrorists could have mistaken it for any other vehicle. A bus is a bus is a bus. Below is a video of the missile that Hamas used to hit the bus. Watch the video. See what kind of damage that missile can do. See how easy it is to assemble and disassemble the missile launcher. Note the ease and clarity of the targeting scope. The terrorists knew full well what they were aiming for, and Iranian dollars supplied them with the weapon. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is smiling today.

Alex Fishman, writing in Ynet, has captured the reasons behind Israel’s furious response perfectly.

Every American or European mother fully understands the meaning of firing at a yellow bus. A yellow bus is an international warning signing that means “these are children.” Those who fire at a yellow bus with the intention of murdering children are war criminals of the worst kind and a partner for nothing.

He also points out that Israel’s vapid response last month to the barrage of dozens of mortars emboldened Hamas to push even further. And push they did, almost committing a goal they have tried to reach for years: The murder of dozens of Israeli children. The anti-Israel left has no sympathy for murdered Israelis. They see no difference between the deliberate targeting of a schoolbus with a missile designed to penetrate solid, reinforced steel and the accidental death of civilians. If Hamas had hit the bus when it was full, the anti-Israel left would still be calling for both sides to exercise “restraint.” Because the world simply does not have a problem with more dead Jews.

The thing is, Israel does. Jews do. And this time, Israel has a clear casus belli—even though the anti-Israel forces will not admit it. The reason for this attack will soon be lost in the last paragraphs of the news reports. But not here. Here, you will know why the IDF is bombing Gaza: Because terrorists deliberately tried to murder dozens of children riding home from school.

Israel kills two Hamas militants hours after truce

Two Hamas militants were killed on Friday in a new air strike on Gaza just hours after the movement called a truce, following a day of confrontations with Israel.

We also learn that Israel responded “immediately” to the attack on a bus, which wounded [only] two people, with the killing and wounding of many. This is the “disproportionate” meme. (Also the “round of violence” meme, but that’s practically a given now.)

The latest violence was sparked Thursday afternoon when Hamas militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, critically wounding a teenager and lightly injuring the driver.

Israel responded immediately, launching more than a dozen strikes on targets across the enclave which by the evening had killed four and injured more than 30, prompting Gaza’s Hamas leaders to hurriedly announce a fresh truce.

[...] The bus attack sparked a chain of Israeli attacks across the territory, which initially killed four people and wounded 37, with medics pulling a fifth body pulled from the rubble in the southern city of Rafah early on Friday.

What we do not learn is that immediately after the bus was shelled, Hamas fired 44 more missiles, including a Grad attack on Ashkelon. Well, not until we’ve read all of the above, a tally of dead and wounded, and the number of times Israel has attacked Gaza. Then we discover this fact:

Aside from the anti-tank missile, militants had lobbed around 50 mortars at Israel, one of which hit a house, a military spokeswoman said.

The BBC is even worse. They use the “military wing” fig leaf to pretend that Hamas has two arms which have nothing to do with another. The BBC story does not mention yesterday’s bombardment by Hamas except for the mortar that hit the bus. It makes it look like Israel is responding only to that, not to some 50 rockets and mortars—as well as the hundreds fired in March.

At least six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza, including two women, doctors say.

The Israeli strikes come hours after Islamist group Hamas said it had brokered a deal for Gaza’s militant groups to stop firing on Israel.

On Thursday, members of its military wing hit an Israeli school bus with an anti-tank shell, injuring two people.

The BBC report mentions “fresh violence,” but clearly puts the responsibility on Israel and whitewashes the attacks of the Palestinians:

Israeli artillery fire and air strikes have been heard across Gaza throughout much of the day, our correspondent says, and at least six rockets were fired into Israel, hitting an area north of the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli police.

It is not clear whether the fresh violence signals an end to the truce, or whether the firing of rockets was carried out by a Palestinian splinter group that had not signed up to the ceasefire.

CNN has a mostly fair account. It has an accurate headline, mentions the 15 mortars shot into Israel today, and seems perfectly fine. Except for the fact that it, too, neglects to mention that the Israeli reprisals are not just for the mortar that hit the bus. There is no word of the barrage that followed immediately after, causing the first responders to wait to bring the boy to the hospital.

What is missing from all of these articles? Any cogent analysis of why Israel is bombing the crap out of Hamas as a response to yesterday’s attack. Here’s why Israel is going full-out after the terrorists:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on an official visit to Prague, commented on the escalating tensions in southern Israel, saying: “The attack on the children’s bus was crossing a red line.

“The IDF reacted immediately overnight and will continue to act with resolve. Heaven help those who try to hurt and murder children,” he added.

More on that later.

Barry Rubin says Hamas is heading towards war with Israel. One point he did not cover is that the Hamas leadership no doubt thinks that if it does come to war with Israel, it can get the same kind of Western help against Israel as the Libyan rebels are getting against Ghadaffi. This is wishful thinking, but can you blame them for thinking that the anti-Israel tide is swinging in their favor? Just read this BBC piece and you will learn that it is Israel doing all the damage to civilians. Or read the articles I posted yesterday. Or the AP update. Note that the AP neglects to mention the 45 missiles that rained down on southern Israel, including a Grad rocket heading towards Ashkelon, in the lede.

An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip struck a school bus in southern Israel Thursday, wounding two people, one of them critically, and prompting fierce Israeli retaliation that killed five Palestinians.

Israel unleashed airstrikes and tank fire against Hamas targets across the border in the heaviest assault on the coastal territory since a broad military offensive two years ago. Besides the dead, more than 30 Palestinians were wounded, said Palestinian health official Adham Abu Salmiya.

Where can you find the information on the Hamas missile barrage? In paragraph 23 of a 27-paragraph story. And yet, you get the information on Israeli assaults, and the damage they caused, in the lede. And of course, you have Hamas spokesmen named and labeled, whereas Israeli spokespeople? They’re faceless, nameless “The military.”

The military said that after the missile attack, about 45 rockets and mortar shells were fired from Gaza toward Israel, including one that struck a home, causing damage but no injuries.

Hamas wants the war. Israel does not. But that’s not what the media are telling us.

     Israel pounds Gaza, kills 3 after missile hits bus

And here’s the lede:

Gaza militants on Thursday fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, critically injuring a teenager, prompting the army to pound the Strip, killing three and wounding more than 30.

After the missile slammed into the bus, the Palestinians lobbed at least 45 mortar rounds into southern Israel, hitting a house, and the army responded by staging multiple raids across the enclave, one of which hit an ambulance, Palestinian medics said.

So naturally, the headline is all about the Israelis pounding the Palestinians. The article goes on to detail the attacks by the Palestinians:

Immediately after the bus was hit, militants in Gaza fired at least seven mortar rounds at the area, complicating efforts to evacuate the teenager and the bus driver, an AFP correspondent said.

By early evening, the army said at least 45 mortar rounds and rockets had slammed into southern Israel, one of which scored a direct hit on a house.

So the Palestinians hit a bus, shot more rockets to make sure they hit the first responders, and then shot even more mortars into Israel, and the headline is—Israel pounds Gaza. Note the language used to denote the pounding of Israel by Palestinians. Then note the language used to describe the Israeli counterattack.

Following the surge in violence, the Israeli military hit back immediately, shelling an area in eastern Gaza City and killing a 50-year-old man and wounding another five people, including a small child.

Air strikes hit two Hamas positions in and around Gaza city, and other raids hit targets in the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis, killing another two people and wounding tens more, eight of whom were injured when shell fragments hit an ambulance, Palestinian medical sources said.

In total, some 34 people were wounded across the Gaza Strip.

A spokeswoman for the military confirmed troops had launched multiple attacks on targets in Gaza, saying it “fired at places from which mortars are fired at Israel.”

You know, it’s gotten to the point where I expect anti-Israel bias in every single non-Israeli or non-Jewish media outlet. I am almost never disappointed.

     Missile from Gaza hits Israeli school bus; 2 hurt

It was a missile that did the damage, not Palestinian terrorists. The AP did not cite the airstrike as the killer in this article from three days ago:

     Israeli Airstrike Kills Militants In Gaza

Quite a difference. You also have to dig down near the end of the story to discover these extremely relevant facts:

Police said that within an hour of the initial missile attack about 15 mortar shells fired from Gaza landed in Israel, including one that directly struck a home, causing damage but no injuries.

That’s the 16th paragraph in a 23-paragraph story. This is the second:

Israel unleashed airstrikes against Hamas targets across the border as well as tank fire that killed a 50-year-old civilian outside his home and wounded nine other people, Palestinian medics said.

The IDF struck after the barrage of missiles. You would think that would be relevant to the writers and editors of the AP piece. But you would be wrong.

The only good news in this whole horrible afternoon in Israel is this: Iron Dome shot down a Grad rocket.

Residents in Ashkelon reported Thursday seeing Israel’s new Iron Dome defense system intercept a Grad rocket fired towards the southern city from the Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses told Ynet they saw the rocket explode in midair and realized that the system had intercepted its first rocket.

If Iron Dome is deployed along the entire southern border, it’s a game-changer. And the Palestinians know it. Doubtless, they’re testing to see what does and does not get shot down.

UNHRC to Goldstone: Nyah nyah nyah, it is too true! The execrable United Nations Human Rights Council says that Goldstone’s op-ed, where he pointed out the bias and lies of the commission report named after him, is not binding. Also that the only way to undo the report is by unanimous vote of all the countries in the UNHRC. In other words: Pound sand, Jewboy. We got what we wanted out of you: A veneer of respectability from a Jewish, South African judge. And if anyone thinks I’m exaggerating what they used him for, well, I have this bridge to sell you. Cheap. It’s in New York. Been in my family for generations.

The Goldstone Repentance Tour begins: He’s going to visit Sderot. As well he should. And if his repentance is sincere, we are commanded to forgive him.

What the media leave out: The AP carried a short piece on the Israeli-Arab actor murdered in Jenin. They missed a significant motive, however.

Residents of the refugee camp disseminated fliers in 2009 calling the actor a fifth column. “If words don’t help we will have to speak in bullets,” the fliers said.

What was it that angered the Arabs of Jenin? This:

However, the actor added, he was taking precautions. Of those behind the fliers he said, “It makes them crazy that a man who is half-Jewish is at the head of one of the most important projects in the Palestinian West Bank and it is just hypocritical racism.”

Stop for a moment and realize that every single time an Arab is wounded or killed and blames Israeli Jews, the AP runs wild with it (as does the rest of the world media). When Arabs murder Jews because they are Jews, the media ignore it.

Reuters missed it in the first article, but noted the anti-Jewish threats in the current one. The AFP missed it. There are most of the European news media outlets right there. And there is a primary example of the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian bias of the major media. The man was murdered because he was Jewish. Not publishing that fact is tantamount to covering it up.