Fellow journalists, call Hamas murderers what they are: terrorists, not militants | Opinion
There is a lot of fake news about Hamas’ brutal terrorist attack on Israel that killed more than 1,250 people and took some 150 hostages, including many grandmothers and babies. But there also are a lot of fake terms in real news about Hamas’ massacre from respectable news organizations.
It’s appalling that many of the world’s most legitimate news outlets continue to refer to Hamas terrorists in first reference as “militants,” “combatants” or “fighters.” As I’ve written before, there is no dictionary in the world that doesn’t define what Hamas did as a terrorism.
An estimated 1,500 Hamas terrorists sneaked into Israel on Oct. 7 and intentionally attacked civilian targets, including an electronic music festival attended by thousands of youths. The terrorists attacked the unarmed concertgoers from three sides, killed at least 260 in the audience and left hundreds of others wounded.
The terrorists’ target wasn’t a military base, but the civilian population. Of the estimated 1,250 people they killed, about 80% were unarmed civilians, according to the Israeli army. The remainder were soldiers trying to defend civilians in the long hours before the Israeli army reached the place.
And yet, as I’m writing this almost a week after one of the most brutal terrorist attacks in modern history, major newspapers and TV networks — including right-of-center outlets such as the Wall Street Journal — keep carrying headlines referring to the Hamas murderers as “militants.”
Reuters, one of the world’s most serious news agencies, still refers to the perpetrators of the massacre of Israeli civilians as “an attack by the militant group Hamas.” Militant group? The term minimizes the barbaric nature of Hamas’ massacre.
Noah Abrahams, a reporter for Britain’s highly respected BBC news service, said he quit his job because of the news company’s decision not to describe Hamas killers as “terrorists” right after their attack, the daily The Independent reported.
Granted, the murderers who committed these atrocities are the military wing of Hamas. There supposedly is a civilian Hamas government — in fact, a dictatorship — that runs Gaza. And they do not represent most Palestinian people. I get that. But none of it makes the Oct. 7 attackers “militants,” as if they were activists protesting against climate change.
Just as misleading are the false equivalencies between the Hamas terrorist attack and the Israeli counter-offensive on Gaza, which has killed at least 1,900 people, including babies, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The Hamas terrorists targeted Israeli civilians, whereas the Israeli army is targeting Hamas murderers who use Palestinian civilians in Gaza and Israeli hostages as human shields. On Friday, Israel asked 1.1 million civilians in Gaza to leave the city and move south of Gaza city ahead of an expected Israeli land incursion — something that Hamas never did before attacking Israel.
The international community is right to demand that Israel try to minimize civilian casualties, but it should be just as forceful — if not more — in demanding that Hamas cease using Palestinian civilians as human shields, stop stashing its weapons underneath Gaza schools and hospitals, and release its hostages.
Israel has a right to defend itself and counter-attack to make sure that Hamas doesn’t attack Israel again.
Once Israel eliminates Hamas’ hierarchy, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be held accountable not only for having failed to protect his country from the attack, but also for having torpedoed a two-state solution that would allow for creation of a Palestinian state.
Hamas, probably with help from Iran, launched this terrorist attack to kill a U.S.-planned Saudi Arabia-Israel agreement that would have reshaped the Middle East. In exchange for diplomatic ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia would have provided massive aid to the Palestinians, which would have strengthened other Palestinian groups in detriment of Hamas.
Eventually, once the Israeli army destroys Hamas, both Israel and Palestinians will have to oust the religious fanatics in their respective governments, and go back to negotiations for a two-state solution.
Israel may be ready to do that: An overwhelming 86% of Israelis blame the extreme right-wing Netanyahu government for Israel’s security failure in the Gaza attack, the Jerusalem Post reported. And Israelis are more ready than ever to back a U.S.-brokered deal with the Palestinians, now that President Biden has emerged as the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history.
In the meantime, Israel must prevail, or the Hamas massacre will send a signal to potential terrorists around the world that they can get away with murdering innocents and kidnapping babies. And the media, as well as every government in the world, should start calling things by their name, and refer to Hamas’ murderers as what they really are — terrorists.
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