Jordan has accused Hamas of smuggling missiles and other weapons into the country, and scouting potential targets.

Notice how the Associated Press applies the word “activists” to the smugglers. That’s pretty darn “active,” all right, smuggling missiles and casing targets.

The wire services have been slowly getting us accustomed to it, working it into articles with increasing frequency, until now it’s commonplace for the AP/Reuters/AFP axis to refer to members of terrorist organizations as “activists,” even in stories involving murder and mayhem.

AMMAN, Jordan - Jordan accused Hamas activists of smuggling missiles and other weapons into the kingdom and said Tuesday it was canceling a planned visit of the Palestinian foreign minister — the second diplomatic snub for the Hamas-led government in a week.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar’s visit to Jordan, which was planned for Wednesday, had been “put off until further notice,” a Jordanian government spokesman said. On Friday, Zahar went to Cairo, but Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said he was too busy for a meeting.

The Jordanian spokesman, Nasser Judeh, told The Associated Press that “missiles, explosives and automatic weapons were seized in the last couple of days.” Hamas activists had managed to smuggle “such dangerous weapons into the country” and store them, he said. He would not say whether the activists had been arrested.

Osama Hamadan, a spokesman for Hamas, declined to comment on Judeh’s remarks, saying late Tuesday he had not seen the Jordanian statement.

In a separate statement to the official Petra news agency, Judeh said Jordanian security services had observed Hamas activists “exploring several vital (potential) targets” in the capital, Amman, and other cities. He did not elaborate. State television quoted Judeh as saying the discovery of the arms cache proved that “Hamas is using two languages in dealing with Jordan.”