AP's pro-Hamas bias, yet again

Besides writing articles to be distributed worldwide, the AP also writes headlines. News organizations are free to use them or to change them as they please, so you will typically find that most web news sites that take the AP feed directly will re-print the AP headline directly as well, while other news organizations may change the headline while keeping the article.

Today's article by Ibrahim Barzak about Israel's killing of master terrorist Jamal Abu Samhadana is not nearly as bad and one-sided as some articles we've seen, although it has the usual errors. Of course he eschews the use of the word "terror" (besides in a quote from Samhadna referring to the US government!).

But what is striking is the headline:

Hamas Continues Resistance Against Israel

Almost unbelievably, the AP has wholeheartedly taken the Hamas side in describing its terror attacks. "Resistance" implies something heroic, akin to calling Hamas terrorists "freedom fighters." Rather than mention that Hamas' shooting rockets into Israel puts a lie to the fake "truce" that the wire services have been mentioning over the past months, the AP spins Hamas' threat to Israeli civilians as "resistance."

Interestingly, some major news organizations kept the pro-terror AP headline, like CBS , The Guardian, the Washington Post and Forbes.

Not to say that the AP doesn't ever use the word "terrorist" without scare quotes. In fact, it does so often.

It referred to Zarqawi as a terrorist in many of its dispatches over the past day.

And in this story, the AP writes:

The USS Cole is heading to the Middle East for the first time since a terrorist bomb killed 17 sailors aboard the Navy ship in Yemen's port of Aden nearly six years ago.

So, according to the AP:

• Attacks against Iraqi civilians are terrorist attacks.
• Attacks against US Navy sailors are terrorist attacks.
  
• Attacks against Jewish civilians in Israel is resistance.