Caution Above Honesty

Here in Israel, when ideologically motivated individuals kill civilians they are referred to by the international media as 'gunmen', 'militants', attackers'... anything but terrorists.  Apparently, the media wants to avoid the appearance of taking sides or rushing to judgement.

And far from generating a media frenzy, coverage of such attacks on Israeli civilians tends to be an arid, reserved academic affair, employing cautious words such as 'alleged', dutifully placed before any description of the perps... and plenty of "scare quotes" * placed around any and all information provided by the Israeli government.

Needless to say, after last night's terror attack in Tel Aviv, The New York times did not disappoint.  Their cautious mention of last night's unpleasantness spent only a few hours on the periphery of their home page before being relegated to the 'world' section of their site.

And as previously mentioned, when describing the individuals who shot at diners with assault rifles at point blank range, there was nary a 'terrorist' in sight - only 'gunmen' and 'attackers' - even though the event was clearly described elsewhere in the article as terrorism!  

Terrorism without terrorists; That's a pretty neat trick, if you think about it.

I alluded to this in the post I put up this morning, but it has been gnawing away at the back of my mind ever since.

When ideologically motivated individuals kill civilians in New York, London, Paris, Madrid, or pretty much everywhere on earth, they are referred to as terrorists in the frenzy of news coverage that inevitably follows.  

Everywhere, that is, except in Israel.

So in keeping with this apparent need for cautious, academic correctness, I will refrain from stating that the entire New York Times editorial staff richly deserves to die in a fire.  

Rather, I will suggest that in a perfect world, their aggregate biologic functions would simultaneously cease in conjunction with the rapid oxidation of their surroundings in an exothermic chemical process of combustion.

 /snark

* Scare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase when they are not required, thereby eliciting attention or doubts.