Terrorist – Militant . . . What’s In A Word

If what the two Palestinians did, was to carry out a terror attack against Israeli Jews, why not call them terrorists?

“Two Palestinian militants carrying out terror attacks also died”. CNN.com.

This is a direct quote, as part of a larger story that appeared on CNN.com. Saturday, March 9, 2002.

The significance of this CNN quote is how CNN.com called the Palestinians “militants”, and then described what they did as a “terror” attack. In the same sentence.

If what the two Palestinians did, was to carry out a terror attack against Israeli Jews, why not call them terrorists? After-all; the people who wreaked havoc within the USA on 9/11, were not, and are not referred to as “militants”. They are terrorists. Nothing more and nothing less.

As a matter of record. The USA, Canada, England and all NATO countries have declared war on terrorists. I don’t remember any declaration referring to the people who are being bombed in Afghanistan, as being militants.

The double standard is both appalling and disturbing. If Americans are killed in a terror attack, the killers are called terrorists. If Jewish Israelis are killed in a terror attack, the killers are called militants.

To me, the explanation is simple. Either the media reporting the “facts” are stupid and can not see the equivalence. Or, the media reporting the “facts” see the equivalence but think that the loss of Jewish life in Israel to terror attacks is somehow justified.

Depending upon your definition of a “militant”; it could be someone who is at war, or someone who is aggressive in a cause. Under the latter definition, I too can be considered to be a militant. I am unrelenting in my beliefs based upon equal and individual rights.

I have staged boycotts, street demonstrations, rallies; and I even practiced civil disobedience against the racist language and cultural laws of the Quebec government. But; I never so much as lifted a hand to anyone. More to the point: anyone who participated with me in any of my activities, understood that violence was a one-way ticket out of anything I did.

Therefore; according to the definition of being a militant, I fit the interpretation. However; no one can define me, my beliefs, and how I conduct(ed) myself as being a “terrorist”.

So, why do the media “choose” to use the definition of people who kill Israeli Jews as militants, when what they are committing, are acts of terrorism to further their political goals, as defined in the above quoted CNN.com statement.

I personally believe, that the media’s choice of “militant”, to describe Arab terrorists who kill Jews, says a great deal about the media’s bias. And this, in many respects, is as frightening to me, as are the acts of terror committed against Jews.

I wonder if CNN and all the other news media, thought that Daniel Pearl, the Jewish American Wall Street Journal reporter; was tortured, murdered and mutilated by “militants”?

After-all; the Pearl murderers are part of the same Islamic mind-set, as the “militants” who kill innocent Israeli Jews every day.

There is a great deal more than just semantics when a word is used in a context that defines such a troubling double standard. It is dishonest, underhanded and revealing.

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One Comment

  1. …..Obama, who is himself the POSTER BOY for Narcissism….

    OH YEAH…. THE EPITOME THEREOF! Did someone say, “At least three and half more years?!?!?”
    DEAR GOD, AND I DO NOT MEAN ‘ALLAH’, PLEASE HELP!!

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