Who is a terrorist?

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, April 16:

Israel is dropping thousands of bombs on towns and villages, on the “the launching pads” of the Qassams – another dubious term created by the defence establishment and blindly adopted by the press – and only the Palestinians, whose Qassam rockets haven’t killed anyone since the disengagement, are called “terrorists.”

Nor was there any substantive debate after a possible slip of the tongue by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in an interview to the BBC, in which she said that there was a difference between attacking civilians and attacking soldiers. Even though she did not resolutely stand by her own words in an interview with Channel 10, Livni dared to speak the truth: If harming civilians is a measure of terror, then Israel is a terror state. With 18 killed in Gaza alone in 12 days, three of them children, the absence of intent cannot suffice for us. Someone who uses artillery to shell population centres and says with horrific indifference that this is “just a preview,” as if it were another reality show on TV, cannot claim that he does not intend to kill children.… 

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