“Militant” According to MSNBC
What is a “militant”?
It is not news that MSNBC and other media outlets routinely refer to terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which target unarmed civilians as “militants”. In the mainstream media, “militant” has become the new word for “terrorist”.
But now MSNBC is referring to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as “Zionist militants”. An MSNBC.com brief about President Bush’s pardon of Charles Winters — a Miami produce exporter who, in contravention of the 1939 Neutrality Act, transferred two airplanes to Israel’s defense forces during its 1948 war to survive — mischaracterizes Israel’s efforts to avoid destruction by invading Arab armies as the resistance of Zionist “militants.”
According to MSNBC parlance, then, Hamas “militants” who have vowed to destroy Israel by targeting civilians are no different than IDF’s 1948 “militants” who vowed to survive and avoid destruction.
It is a moral equivalence which tells a lot about the underlying mindset of the editors.
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