Free Republic

Based on a statistical analysis of the results, and taking into account the content of the texts that were chosen for the sample, the researchers concluded that at least six different hands had written the 18 missives at around the same time. Even soldiers in the lower ranks of the Judahite army, it appears, could read and write... The study was based on a trove of about 100 letters inscribed in ink on pieces of pottery, known as ostracons, that were unearthed near the Dead Sea in an excavation of the Arad fort decades ago and dated from about 600...

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — The carved stone block is about the size of an occasional table. It has held its secrets for two millenniums. Whoever engraved its enigmatic symbols was apparently depicting the ancient Jewish temples. But what makes the stone such a rare find in biblical archaeology, according to scholars, is that when it was carved, the Second Temple still stood in Jerusalem for the carver to see. The stone is a kind of ancient snapshot. And it is upending some long-held scholarly assumptions about ancient synagogues and their relationship with the Temple, a center of Jewish pilgrimage and...

In an unusually pointed rebuke of its ally, Israel said on Wednesday that it was “deeply disappointed” by Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks a day earlier that appeared to lay primary blame on Israel for the crisis in the American-brokered Middle East peace talks.

The New York Times Goldstones Israel Again. Doubles the Number of Civilian Casualties in Gaza Lenny Ben-David Wednesday, April 13, 2011 The New York Times Goldstones Israel Again.Doubles the Number of Civilian Casualties in Gaza http://lennybendavid.com/2011/04/new-york-times-goldstones-israel-again.html There in the middle of a silly article about Justin Bieber's visit to Israel, The New York Times' Isabel Kershner goldstones Israel. "Last Thursday, a 16-year-old Israeli boy was critically wounded by an antitank missile fired by Hamas militants at a school bus in [SIC] Gaza. That triggered days of intense exchanges of fire, during which 18 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, were...

In monitoring New York Times coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I've served up numerous examples of how its correspondents spin, distort, bend and ignore the truth so as to paint Israel in a bad light. But there are no polite adjectives for the idiotic lengths to which Times correspondent Isabel Kershner goes to take a poke at Israel in her Oct. 18 article about resumption of mediation efforts to negotiate release of Sgt. Gilad Shalit from his lengthy Hamas captivity in Gaza ("Israel Renews Bid to Free Soldier Held by Hamas" page A4).  This bit of poisonous anti-Israel propaganda...