I was wrong. When Hamas inflicted the worst attack on Jews since the holocaust, murdering hundreds of people in cold blood, I joined the herd complaining not so much about this obscene act of terrorism, but in the wording used by media agencies like the BBC in describing crucial aspects of it. Essentially, I became a brief member of the “Why oh why?” brigade, railing against things that were less important than the real story of mass murder. I was – was – angry that Hamas terrorists were described as “militants” or just “gunmen“. The distinction seemed important because people I respected, or perhaps felt they knew better than I did, said so. But, I was wrong.
Words are, of course, important. After all, politicians misuse and twist words every single day, in the case of our current government, almost to breaking point. What you hear is not what they mean. When oily billionaire short-trousered oaf Rishi Sunak tells us he is going to stop a forthcoming “meat tax“, or stop plans to make householders use seven different recycling bins, he stops plans that never existed at all, except in the imagination of his taxpayer funded spin team. This isn’t as serious as the mass murder of innocent people, but provides a further example of the dark arts of manipulation.
I would always favour the term, among many others, of terrorists to those who commit terrorism. The actions of Hamas’s baby brother Islamic Jihad were likely responsible for the attack on a hospital and Hamas itself carried out the mass murder of innocent people at a peaceful pop festival. If we get more worked up about how to describe the maniacs who murdered people in cold blood than the attacks themselves – and I have to be honest, the distraction of militants/terrorists worked with me for a crucial time – then perhaps we need to give our heads a big wobble. Mine has been well and truly wobbled.
In any event, there is a tendency these days to not believe a word politicians and the media tell us. And if you look at the tabloid media, it’s with good reason, as lies and distortions are the norm, rather than the exception in the gutter press, which these days includes such luminaries as the unhinged Daily Telegraph, as it strives to enrage its elderly readership. There is good reason to be sceptical about what we are being told – no one is more cynical than I am about that – but there are some things I still believe in, like the general impartiality at news outlets like the BBC and Sky. If the BBC fucked up by referring to terrorists as militants, it would not have been an instruction from on high, as it would have been, say, at any of Rupert Murdoch’s myriad of media outlets. Our national public service broadcaster, as well as Channel Four, Sky and ITV, tries and sometimes fails to get it right, but who can honestly say that the likes of the Mail, Sun, Telegraph, Express, Talk TV and GB News make the slightest effort to provide balanced reporting? No one, certainly not honestly.
The truth is that no one has anything new to say about the middle east. Most of us believe that the only possible hope for peace would be for Israel and Palestine to live side by side in their own states. No one talks about a long term plan for a single multicultural state with very good reason. We are far too far gone.
Terrorists or militants? Yes, there is a difference which I find quite nuanced and, to be honest, less relevant. We know what’s right and what’s not and if we are fretting more about individual words than we are the horrific reality, yes, like I was, then we’re going nowhere.
