"Alternate Reality" Threatens Both Israel and Jewish Communities Around the World (Daled Amos) ~ EoZ

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

"Alternate Reality" Threatens Both Israel and Jewish Communities Around the World (Daled Amos)

Language is created by people. It's a reflection of both their times and their mindset.

No less an authority than Calvin & Hobbs pointed this out:

Calvin is right, the word "access" was originally only a noun.

Here is the entry for "access" in Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary -- from 1970:

Websters in 1970 defined "access" only as a noun, and then it defined "accessible" as "usable for access" or "easy of access" -- using "access" as a noun. The fact it defines "accessibility" as "easy of access" instead of "easy to access" is because there was no such thing as "to access" at the time.

In time, possibly because of computers, "access" became a noun and a verb since it was more convenient to say "access" instead of "gain access."

But even Calvin stopped short of the whole truth. He said that "verbing weirds language."

Actually, ideology "weirds" language too.

How long have we argued about the difference between militants and terrorists? This issue comes up when the media reports about Palestinians attacking Israeli civilians and trying to kill them. The media insists on calling these Palestinians "militants" instead of "terrorists." And no wonder. Unlike militants, terrorists target defenseless civilians while militants do not.

A good example of this wordplay is the BBC. In the midst of the current war between Israel and Hamas, BBC has refused to call Hamas "terrorists," despite the Hamas massacre of 1,400 Israeli civilians and the over 200 hostages dragged back to Gaza:

The BBC has defended its decision not to describe Hamas militants as "terrorists" in coverage of the recent attacks in Israel.

UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the policy is "verging on disgraceful".

A BBC spokesperson noted it was a long-standing position for its reporters not to use the term themselves unless attributing it to someone else.

Veteran BBC foreign correspondent John Simpson said "calling someone a terrorist means you're taking sides".

Pity the BBC. The term terrorist is decidedly negative so they felt they had to find another word -- because synonyms like assassin, bomber, fanatic, guerrilla, gunman, and hijacker didn't seem to reach the level of neutrality they needed to avoid tainting the Hamas name.

After pressure, the BBC made a compromise:

The BBC has recently dropped the use of 'militant' to describe Hamas attackers and instead is continuing to describe the group as a terrorist organisation proscribed by the UK Government and others.

The broadcaster's bosses had faced calls to review its editorial guidelines amid anger - including from Government ministers - at the corporation for not directly referring to Hamas as a terror organisation.

The guidelines state that journalists should not use the term terrorist without attribution - meaning it is permitted only when used by others - and that words such as 'bomber', 'attacker', 'gunman', 'kidnapper', 'insurgent' and 'militant' should be used to describe perpertrators.

According to BBC policy, they will use the T-word only for attribution, but not as a "judgment call." Yet the BBC had no problem describing other groups as terrorists:

Just 2 weeks ago, the BBC actually reported about a terror attack -- in Brussels:

The BBC has now dutifully wiped the headline so that it now reads, "Brussels shooting: 'Europe shaken' after two Swedes shot dead." The T-word is still used 5 times in the article -- twice while quoting an official and the other 3 times could arguably also be an attribution, each time without any qualification.

But this is part of a larger phenomenon we have been seeing in the US during the whitewashing of violence to support a political, ideological agenda.

In 2020, CNN was widely mocked for describing a riot as a 'fiery but mostly peaceful protest'

CNN national correspondent Omar Jimenez was reporting live in the early hours on Tuesday morning on the unrest that had taken place in Kenosha, Wis., following the police-involved shooting of Jacob Blake.

Jimenez was standing in front of a raging fire and the chyron at the bottom of the screen read, "FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS AFTER POLICE SHOOTING."

MSNBC did something similar

MSNBC reporter just now: "I want to be clear on how I characterize this. This is mostly a protest. It is not generally speaking unruly."

The guy is literally standing in front of a burning building in the middle of a riot. pic.twitter.com/IzCV6On4sF
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) May 29, 2020

NBC came out right into the open to clarify that NBC would not use the word "riot" to describe the reaction to George Floyd's murder:

NBC News came under scrutiny Thursday for allegedly telling its reporters to refer to the events in Minneapolis this week as "protests" and not "riots," according to one of its anchors.

Craig Melvin, an MSNBC host and co-anchor of "Today," shed some light as to how his network is framing its reporting.

...Melvin's tweet raised eyebrows among critics who accused the network of downplaying the violence that took place in the city to protest the death of George Floyd.

"What kind of alternate reality is this where the mass looting and burning of businesses is not considered a riot by a news network? A protest is what we had here in LA last night. What’s happening in Minneapolis is the textbook definition of a riot. Protesters don’t loot. Period," local Fox affiliate reporter Bill Melugin tweeted.

The ability to whitewash riots, lootings and the burning of businesses as mere "protests" in defense of left-wing groups such as BLM established the precedence that violence and destruction could be excused and even covered up for a "righteous cause." It set the stage for our current "alternate reality" where people gloss over the Hamas massacres of 1,400 Israeli civilians and the kidnapping of over 200 by Hamas terrorists, and blame the victims.

Peggy Noonan writes about this "alternate reality" in the face of the Hamas massacre. She notes that while people who are middle-aged or older feel sympathy and loyalty towards Israel, the young see the situation in a completely different way. They feel antipathy, "sometimes accompanied by rage, sometimes by almost violent accusations against the colonialist oppressor state." This is more than seeing a righteous cause.

According to Noonan:

At the bottom of today’s progressive politics there is blood lust. They speak of justice and equity but that’s not what they want, they want dominance. It’s all about the will to power. Progressive students have absorbed the idea it’s good to be militant in your views, it shows you’re authentic. No, it shows you got the talking points. [emphasis added]

And now -- consistent with the whitewashing of BLM riots -- university students, armed with those talking points that Noonan mentioned, defend and praise terrorists while condemning their victims. These students are defended by university administrations and by many in the media. Protesters recite their mantra that Israel is an occupier and is therefore responsible for any "violence" committed by Hamas. They may be taking their cue from Francesca Albanese, who under the guise of a law degree, spreads her ideological hatred of Israel and admiration of Hamas and claims that Israel has no right to self-defense.

While Israel is in a battle to change the reality in Gaza, Jewish communities around the world face a rise in antisemitism that threatens to create a new reality of its own.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!