Confucius once said that “the beginning of wisdom is the ability to call things by their right names.”
That does not appear to be the approach of the Associated Press this week after the media organization told its reporters not to call Hamas fighters “terrorists” after they massacred civilians, raped women, and took a couple hundred hostages from Israel on Oct. 7.
The Voice of America issued its own instruction to avoid calling Hamas “terrorists.”
According to the AP, these fighters are to be called “militants” because the term “terrorist” has “become politicized.”
But there is nothing “politicized” in recognizing that Hamas intentionally targeted civilians, including mowing down unarmed participants at a peace concert.
They burned civilians alive in their homes and raped women.
They intentionally and systemically took civilian hostages, including children and the elderly.
The acts defined the actors. These were terrorist acts and those who committed them were by definition terrorists.
The International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism defines terrorism as “any … act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.”
The United Nations Security Council specifically includes with this definition “criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages.”
Nevertheless, the Associated Press reportedly issued an “Israel-Hamas Topical Guide,” which noted that “terrorism and terrorist have become politicized, and often are applied inconsistently.” Thus “the AP is not using the terms for specific actions or groups, other than in direct quotations.”
This isn’t the first time the AP has made strikingly artificial language choices.
For example, AP reporters were told to avoid using the word “surge” to describe the record number of migrants crossing the border.
Likewise, when there was violence and looting in various cities after the George Floyd killing, AP told its reporters to use “milder terms” like “unrest” rather than “riots.”
Yet when it came to January 6, AP routinely referred to the riot as an “insurrection”.
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