Killing is killing and terror is terror, regardless of whether they’re committed by an ad hoc group like Hamas or an official government like Israel’s or the U.S.’s. From Norman Solomon at antiwar.com:
Labels are central to the politics of media. And no label has been more powerful than “terrorist.”
A single standard of language should accompany a consistent standard of human rights, which the world desperately needs. “If thought corrupts language,” George Orwell wrote, “language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.”
No amount of rhetoric from its defenders and apologists can change the reality that Hamas engaged in mass murder. What Hamas horrifically did to more than 1,000 Israeli civilians of all ages two weeks ago meets the dictionary definition of terrorism.
And no amount of rhetoric can change the reality that the Israeli government has engaged in mass murder during the last two weeks. What Israel’s military is horrifically doing in Gaza, already killing several thousand Palestinian civilians of all ages, also meets the definition of terrorism.
But U.S. media outlets dodge being evenhanded with the “terrorist” label – applying it to organized Palestinian killers of Israelis and not to organized Israeli killers of Palestinians.
The routine media bias does not in any way mitigate the horrendous crimes committed by Hamas in Israel. And that media bias does not in any way mitigate the horrendous crimes that are being committed – on an even larger scale, increasing daily – by the Israeli government in Gaza.
