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Last update - 08:18 08/07/2008
Fear of calling a terrorist a terrorist
By Bradley Burston
Tags: media, terrorism, bulldozer 

This week the people of London mark the anniversary of the 7/7 suicide bombings, which claimed the lives of 52 people. This might be as good a time as any to look at the challenges journalists face in covering intentional, ideologically based lethal attacks on civilians, which is to say, terrorism.

Journalists are right to fear calling a terrorist a terrorist. The word is often misused, its power exploited, its capacity for bias unbounded, its application all too often judgmental, inflammatory, grossly inexact, even racist.

Sometimes, though, terrorism actually is terrorism.

Last week, a Palestinian drove a bulldozer past a building which houses a number of major world and Israeli news media outlets, ramming the earth mover over and into a succession of cars in an incident which shocked and perplexed a public and a journalist corps which, until that moment, believed that they had seen it all.

There were those among the Israeli press who were all too ready to definitively declare the incident - which at first appeared a possible accident - as outright terrorism.

At the same time, there were those, many of them members of the international news media, who chose a different option, one which, initially at least, seemed much better grounded in journalistic ethics.

Their approach could be seen as a two-dimensional, literal, oddly bloodless, thoroughly anonymous reading of certain facts at hand. "Man shot dead after Jerusalem bulldozer rampage" read the headline in the U.K. Guardian newspaper's online edition." Accompanying picture captions read like a shuttered window: "Bulldozer crashes into Jerusalem bus." "A man seized control of a bulldozer in Jerusalem today and used it to overturn a bus before he was shot and killed. Warning: contains images of dead bodies some may find disturbing."

One of the journalistic lessons of 7/7, like the September 11 attacks four years before, was this: All terrorism is local. That is to say, editors, reporters and news outlets for whom the word terror was long off-limits, may truly comprehend the word and the necessity of its use, only when terrorism strikes their own community. So it was in London, as in New York.

The reactions of journalists, accordingly, may also be seen to be emotional in the extreme, especially when viewed by those who have yet to be stricken. Sometimes, when a Palestinian terrorist strikes, it is the natural reaction of some observers to find new and creative ways to explain why Israel - and only Israel - was truly to blame.

So it was, that last week, when this space carried a dispatch called Palestinian terrorism as a natural act, I received a number of letters which took me to task - one taking the trouble to call me a racist ******* - for failing, in the same essay, to list Jewish massacres of Palestinians, failing to condemn runaway settlement construction, failing to list hundreds of Palestinian villages leveled, failing to denounce house demolitions and expulsions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, killings of Palestinian children, and "the occupation of lands stolen in 1967."

In other words, for failing to explain why this man did what he did with the bulldozer, and why it pales in comparison to what Israel has done and continues to do.

For the benefit of this reader, and many others, I would like to say this. I do unreservedly and without apology condemn Jewish massacres of Palestinians, runaway settlement construction, the leveling of Palestinian villages, house demolitions and expulsions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the killings of Palestinian children and the occupation.

Call me a racist, but that doesn't change my opinion of the man with the bulldozer one bit.

Just as Palestinian murders of Israelis, Palestinian inculcation of children with racist anti-Semitic incitement, and radical Islamic Palestinian refusal to accept the possibility of a Jewish state, change not one whit my opinion of Baruch Goldstein, who slaughtered 29 Muslims at prayer in Hebron in 1994.

Sometimes, terrorism is just that.

There are those who argue that the bulldozer driver was not a terrorist because he did not belong to an organization which ordered him to kill, or because he used drugs, or was otherwise emotionally unstable.

I would suggest that terrorism is terrorism whether committed on orders or on one's own volition. I would suggest that terrorism is terrorism even if the terrorist is not a model of emotional health. It isn't just anyone off the street, one supposes, who has the emotional instability to intentionally detonate a bomb belt he has strapped to his midriff, or who intentionally flies the plane he is riding into a skyscraper

I would also suggest that terrorism is equally execrable, equally unjustifiable, equally obscene whether committed by a Jew for supposedly Jewish causes, or a Muslim for supposedly Islamic ones.

As for the question of state terrorism, I would suggest this. IDF soldiers and officers have committed war crimes, they have killed innocent people in incidents which could have been prevented, and Israel has an obligation to see that they be punished. The government must see to it that its policies do not harm innocent people, and it is the job of the press to make sure that when this happens, it comes to light, and that officials take steps to see that it does not recur.

At the same time, the Palestinians, and Hamas in particular, can no longer have it both ways. You cannot pretend to be a legitimate government, and still countenance, sponsor, and otherwise permit terrorism to continue.

Terrorism is many things, but justifiable is not among them. The person who justifies terror in any form, is declaring that it is legitimate in certain cases to kill innocent people. If justifying the murder of innocents because they belong to a certain hated group is not abject racism, I'd like to know what is.

_______________

Previous blogs:
Palestinian terrorism as a natural act
How would Jesus vote on Mideast peace?
Perhaps we killed Christ after all
Experiment: Peace dead? Send us your own plan!
Israel's own version of Holocaust denial
Our Defense Forces, our war crimes, our terrorism
Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
A hero or a pharaoh?
An Iranian film praising Sadat's assassin has touched off a row between Egypt and Iran.
Primary colors
Barack Obama looks to reassure Jews of his commitment to Israeli security.
  1.   He was a drug-addled Arab with a Jewish wife 03:25  |  myrta 08/07/08
  2.   Psychological warfare 03:39  |  Anonymous 08/07/08
  3.   Bradley 07:01  |  Yosemite 08/07/08
  4.   The terror on the face of the mothers. 09:09  |  Maureen Ann 08/07/08
  5.   Terrorism Is Terrorism!! 09:10  |  Moshe 08/07/08
  6.   #1 myrta on the excuse trail! it was not a bulldozer 09:10  |  victor hardman 08/07/08
  7.   kol ha`kavod bradley 09:12  |  yonatan 08/07/08
  8.   state terrorism, an ugly reality 09:20  |  Ben 08/07/08
  9.   Bradley and peace lovers in a tough position 09:21  |  ScotGuy 08/07/08
  10.   First, Israel must accept Hamas as a legitimate government 09:22  |  Clickfool 08/07/08
  11.   Bradley when will terrorism become local to Haaretz? 09:23  |  x-ray 08/07/08
  12.   Anonymous in Chicago 09:25  |  x-ray 08/07/08
  13.   Reap what you sow 09:29  |  Natallie Durson 08/07/08
  14.   THE MURDERER HAD RECENTLY JOINED ISLAM . 09:40  |  Bill 08/07/08
  15.   Definitions, definitions ... 09:47  |  Cynical 08/07/08
  16.   what is terrorism? 09:58  |  KMS 08/07/08
  17.   Supporting Terrorism On Haaretz 10:01  |  Tex 08/07/08
  18.   not quite... 10:08  |  max 08/07/08
  19.   NO TERRORISM, THERE WOULD BE NO ISRAEL 10:10  |  indrajaya 08/07/08
  20.   Response for Bradley 10:11  |  Esther 08/07/08
  21.   #14 Bill There are approximately 23 631 New Zealand Muslims. 10:21  |  Maureen Ann 08/07/08
  22.   Bradley tries to justify his premature judgement of bulldozer man 10:22  |  Michael 08/07/08
  23.   I agree with you Mr. Burston - but 10:28  |  Steve the Pals. 08/07/08
  24.   #4 maureen - The JOY on the face of the mothers. 10:44  |  CK Tan 08/07/08
  25.   Bouncing the blame off your "terrorists". 10:58  |  Steve the Pals. 08/07/08
  26.   #13 natallie d - RIGHT on the money! 11:02  |  CK Tan 08/07/08
  27.   Destroying soup kitchens, orphanages, clinics is terrorism 11:04  |  Michael 08/07/08
  28.   Mental disorder and terrorism 11:06  |  Michael 08/07/08
  29.   Having it both ways... 11:08  |  H50 08/07/08
  30.   #19 indrajaya - and suharto was a SAINT 11:11  |  CK Tan 08/07/08
  31.   Important differences 11:35  |  Ibrahim 08/07/08
  32.   By the book 11:45  |  FreeOne 08/07/08
  33.   Bradley is complicit 11:50  |  peter 08/07/08
  34.   #23 - Steve 11:52  |  ScotGuy 08/07/08
  35.   language of "terrorism" too loaded 11:59  |  raymond deane 08/07/08
  36.   To #14: Bill 12:01  |  An Arab Neighbor 08/07/08
  37.   Bradley Burston is a brainless, no-talent clown 12:06  |  Tarik 08/07/08
  38.   Burstom 12:13  |  j10 08/07/08
  39.   Finally an Israeli admits that Israel committed war crimes? 12:24  |  zack 08/07/08
  40.   IDF terrorist. Go on say it, Bradley. 12:36  |  Michael 08/07/08
  41.   NOT EVERY MUSLIM IS A TERRORIST 12:40  |  Iskander 08/07/08
  42.   Looking truth in the eye 12:44  |  Tom 08/07/08
  43.   Don`t worry j10 #38 12:54  |  Esther 08/07/08
  44.   #39 - When will the Palestinians their love for terror? 13:00  |  ScotGuy 08/07/08
  45.   #6 Victopaul Harrisman and his usual tripe 13:00  |  Labhras 08/07/08
  46.   Problems do not age well 13:06  |  allang 08/07/08
  47.   Brad and the settlers 13:20  |  JJ Burke 08/07/08
  48.   #44 13:22  |  Rab Burns 08/07/08
  49.   #35 raymande rattles the pots and pans again 13:37  |  victor hardman 08/07/08
  50.   Bradley, that`s enough with "balancing" Baruch Goldstein with the 13:46  |  S 08/07/08
  51.   Peace Plan: The US should appoint Slowman as peace mediator 13:47  |  Bursting Brad 08/07/08
  52.   Even for you bradley,this is truly a mendacious article! 13:52  |  lakshmi 08/07/08
  53.   Good Points Bradley! 13:54  |  Ronnie Wolman 08/07/08
  54.   Playing with words is also terrorism. 13:55  |  Akram Zekaria 08/07/08
  55.   Rerrorism as such is not that impressive anymore and 14:02  |  17 08/07/08
  56.   * 36 ARAB NEIGHBOUR 14:10  |  BILL 08/07/08
  57.   to Myrta#1 14:17  |  Hilda 08/07/08
  58.   * 21 MAUREEN ANN 14:28  |  BILL 08/07/08
  59.   Definition 14:45  |  Super Synic 08/07/08
  60.   Terrorist Definition 15:09  |  Jasper 08/07/08
  61.   Right complaint for the wrong case 15:09  |  Tosefta 08/07/08
  62.   Absolute truth vs Zeitgeist / 6 15:10  |  Bob 08/07/08
  63.   Absolute truth vs Zeitgeist / 7 15:11  |  Bob 08/07/08
  64.   #2 anonymous 15:28  |  Edith 08/07/08
  65.   Again comparing 1 and 148 15:54  |  Mladen Andrijasevic 08/07/08
  66.   studying the Motives and the Responses. 15:58  |  Tzfonit 08/07/08
  67.   #39 - When will Pals admit that they use terrorism? 16:04  |  ScotGuy 08/07/08
  68.   Bradley, the aftermath of an IDF raid is the worst form of terror 16:13  |  Palestinian in UK