Wednesday, February 01, 2023
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| Justice Potter Stewart knew it when he saw it. |
Scare quotes, according to the Oxford Dictionary, are “quotation
marks used around a word or phrase when they are not required, thereby
eliciting attention or doubts.” Perhaps nowhere is the use of scare quotes more
galling than when used to justify Arab attacks on Jews. No one could possibly
doubt that it is, in fact, a terror attack when an Arab shoots Jews dead in a
Jerusalem synagogue on Shabbat. Yet despite this fact, a number of news reports
placed the words “terror attack” in scare quotes, as if to cast doubts on the
rightness or wrongness of the event. This malign and antisemitic practice of
using scare quotes to excuse terror, is as common and familiar as terror
itself.
Sometimes there is a thin line between scare quotes and just
plain old quotation marks. There are also times when the intent is subjective,
as in this Twitter exchange from 2016:
@epavard This is an actual quotation. These are not "scare quotes."
— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) April 18, 2016
Did you actually read the story?
I thought it was clear just from the title: Israel police: Explosion on Jerusalem bus
was a “terror attack.” Seven years later, I still think those are scare
quotes and I still don’t think I need to read the article. But perhaps I am
jaded. Associated Press writer Matt Lee thought the quotation marks perfectly
legitimate in that context—and I happen to like Matt Lee. He asks the most
awesome, penetrating questions at State Department press briefings.
Speaking of which, the White House had no problem saying it like it is in its press release on the recent attack on a Neve Yaakov synagogue. No scare quotes in the title: "Condemning the Terrorist Attack in Jerusalem."
And none in the
statement itself, which begins:
“The United States condemns in the strongest terms the
horrific terrorist attack that occurred today outside of a synagogue in
Jerusalem.”
Sky
News, however, took the Matt Lee route, claiming the quote came from
the police, as opposed to the sick and twisted mind of the writer or his
editor:
Police said the gunman arrived at around 8.15pm local time (6.15pm UK time) on Friday and described the shooting as a "terror attack".
Same deal with the Independent—and
oh, by the way, Neve Ya’akov is not a settlement, but a Jerusalem neighborhood:
Israeli police described the shooting as a “terror attack” and said it took place at a synagogue in the Neve Ya’akov settlement.
The BBC, of course,
is always first and worst, this time suggesting that while Israel called the
dude who killed Jews in shul a “terrorist,” it ain’t necessarily so:
The man who attacked the synagogue on Friday was identified by local media as a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, who police described as a "terrorist".
The BBC, of course, has a
vested interest in using scare quotes in this context. They would like you to
think that the shooting was in self-defense, or that a gun went off by accident, or perhaps even
that murdering Jews is a mitzvah, because Jews live on land Arabs want.
What was disappointing this time was the use of scare quotes
by the Washington
Free Beacon, often fairer than most when reporting on Israel:
Israeli police described it as a "terror attack" and said it took place in a synagogue in Neve Ya'akov.
Here too, the quotes are subject to interpretation. The
journalist can always say he is quoting the police. But the lack of context is
troubling. It is too easy for the reader to conclude that the shooting was not
motivated by terror and might even have been justified.
From the standpoint of the journalist, quotes from officials lend authority to a report. Here,
however, the quote does no such thing, because it’s not really a quote. Like Judge Potter Stewart, I know it when I see it, in this case, a quote. Which leads us right back to scare quotes.
Any reporter worth his salt knows that the writing should always be clear and without any taint of bias. For this reason, a good writer always tries to get into the head of the reader. Here, the report needed to be unambiguous. There should have been an effort to remove all doubt from the reader's mind, because the shooting was, in fact, a terror attack, by even the most objective standards.
And of course, there is always another way for a writer to
say something. If you get stuck for words, have a cup of tea and try again, for goodness sakes. Rather than sow doubt and suspicion against the yahud, be on the side of truth, and
state it as fact:
Israeli police have confirmed that a terror attack took place in a Neve Ya’akov synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath.
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