The silliness that prevails over supposedly value-free terminology raises a deeper concern.

A small minority of reporters, editors and hangers-on in the media harbor an actual agenda of prejudice, hatred and antisemitism. Ignoring this relatively minor segment, we're left with the great mass of communications professionals who, though tremendously influential in molding the ideas, knowledge and values of the great unwashed, are themselves often barely literate in the issues on which they report. Having myself met hundreds of them who pass through Israel, and been interviewed by many of them, I have a long list of sad and disturbing stories to support this claim. It's clear to me that in the vast majority of cases, they possess the barest of grips on the subject matter.

And like most of us, when faced with complexity and with the need to make an objective and defensible assessment of events and contradictory narratives, they fail the test, preferring to adopt and project what they see as the conventional wisdom. Hence the recycled inaccuracies, the repeated distortions, that make it so hard for people to understand what is being done to Israel and Israelis.

Our response, as people concerned with Israel's well-being, has to be to find constructive and intelligent ways to provide information. This means reaching not only the media people, but beyond them to the people at large - and not only in the United States.

No one is doing this very well - least of all the responsible authorities in the government of Israel. As an Israeli tax-payer, it's appalling to me to see (from closer up than most people) how meager - even declining - are the resources devoted to telling Israel's side of the story. From bitter experience, I know that too many people at all levels of society fail to get the catastrophic implications of being passive in the face of the sort of media nonsense you have showcased. More power to you.