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| photo credit: Abba Reitsman, MDA |
There’s something about the way the sound carries to my
street, but I always know when there’s a terror attack at the Gush Etzion Junction,
as there was today. One siren? It’s a heart attack or some other emergency.
Several sirens? We’re talking a terror attack.
Now I’m going to specify here and say that it was an Arab
terror attack. At this point you may be thinking: is there any other kind? But
it needs to be specified. It needs to be said. An Arab did this to a Jew.
Why does it need to be said? And isn’t it a little bit racist
to specify the nationalities or races of the parties involved? And why not say “Palestinian”
and “Israeli” if you must specify nationality or “Jew” and “Muslim” if you must
specify religion?
So here’s the thing: last week a British tourist, Hanna Bladon,
was murdered
by an Arab terrorist while she was riding the Jerusalem light rail. He murdered
her because he THOUGHT she was Jewish. At any rate, not one of the British news
outlets referred to her murder as such. They said she was killed. They didn’t
call it terror. They didn’t call her murderer an “Arab” or a “Palestinian”
because it didn’t fit their narrative.
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| Hanna Bladon, murdered by an Arab who thought she was a Jew. |
It didn’t fit what those reporters felt comfortable
reporting, what they WANT to report. They don’t want a good British Christian
murdered because someone thinks she’s a Jew. They don’t want Arabs murdering Jews.
They want Palestinians murdering Israelis, because then they can call it “freedom
fighting.” Or they can explain it away as “he just snapped” from all the
supposed Israeli oppression/occupation.
They’re comfortable with that. But definitely not
comfortable with the idea that Israeliness has nothing to do with terror on any
level. It’s not about someone fighting for land or someone snapping. It’s
Arabs, wanting to murder Jews.
Period.
That’s the truth of the matter and it’s all anyone should be
interested in, specifically news outlets.
“Democracy dies in darkness” is
alliterative as all get out, but it’s meaningless pap. The truth is, the truth is
the last thing you’re going to get from news outlets. Which is why I have to
blog this stuff at the end of a long, tiring day at work. Because no one pays
me to lie.
So back to our terror attack of today. My husband pointed
out that none of the Israeli news outlets saw fit to mention this dynamic: that
of an Arab terrorist, attempting to murder a Jew. The Times of Israel
mentions a “Palestinian assailant” (read “freedom fighter) in the article, but
not in the headline. Ynet also doesn’t see fit to put the facts in the
headline, which reads: One
lightly-moderately wounded in a terrorist attack at the Gush Etzion
intersection; Terrorist shot, killed.
The article itself refers to a “Palestinian terrorist” who wounds a 70 year-old
“man.” We have to guess at the victim’s nationality/religion.
Haaretz doesn’t tell us anything about the identity
of the attacker. The headline reads: Israeli man wounded in West Bank
car-ramming attack; driver killed. Obfuscation. Both victim and attacker could
have been Israeli Arabs, for all we know. The attacker gets no identity at all,
because they’re leaving open possibilities here, you see? The “driver” could
have been anyone, Arab, Jew, or even Mr. Smith from Idaho. In a leftist fantasy
world where everyone is equal, we don’t need to know that here an Arab tried to
murder a Jew. Both are human beings and that is all that matters.
The Israel National News headline reads: One Injured in
Car Attack in Gush Etzion and the text tells us that the victim is “Israeli”
and describes the attack as “terror.” But we don’t know a thing about the
terrorist. He could have been any nationality, any color, any religion. If we
wonder, we’re probably already racist bigots, just for asking the question.
The Jewish Press went pretty much as neutral as Haaretz:
Terror
Attack at Gush Etzion Junction, Terrorist Dead. Do I think they did it
on purpose? Of course not. But it doesn’t matter. If a British person should
stumble across that headline, what is he going to think?
He’s not going to think: An Arab tried to murder a Jew.
Because he’s not ALLOWED to think that kind of thought in his cosseted little
world of political correctness.
The thing is, the only way we’re going to hammer home the
truth is by speaking it clearly ourselves, over and over again. It must be
said: An Arab terrorist tried to murder a Jew. Every time it happens.
Let’s stop pretending there is a nationality called “Palestinian.”
That’s THEIR game. Not ours. We don’t play games. We tell the truth.
If they wanted a state called Palestine, that could have
been Transjordan. But no one is confusing Jordan with a mythical place called “Palestine”
and neither should we.
This is not about land, either. It’s about hatred and
bigotry. Tamimi the terrorist who killed Hanna Bladon did not give a rat’s ass
about her passport. He wanted her dead because in his mind, she was a Jew,
which is the same thing as some kind of vermin to be offed the moment it is
confronted.
Let me say this: no hero goes around stabbing defenseless
women riding trains minding their own business. This was no freedom fighter. He
was a piece of crap who deserved to die.
By the same token, no heroic freedom fighter stabs a 70
year-old man in the head as that man is minding his own business, just crossing
the street. THAT is pathological, sick, ugly.
During all the travails of the Jewish people, we never acted
out randomly like this because we snapped. No one does. It’s not how people
operate. Terror is pure evil and must be presented as such and labeled clearly.
Caveat emptor.
If we don’t do it in our own media, don’t label victim and
terrorist clearly, we cannot expect the world to fall in line and do it for us.
Moreover, if we don’t label victim and terrorist clearly, we cannot expect to
WIN.
The thing is, even if the news reporters are in a hurry or
don’t have a lot of space for a headline, there’s no excuse for this lack of
clarity. Accuracy doesn’t have to take up either space or time. “Jew” and “Arab”
are both a heckuva lot shorter than Palestinian, attacker, assailant, Israeli,
and so on and so forth.
Please, let’s get our act together on this score, people.
This is a war we’re fighting. And we’re not going to win it by obscuring the
truth.