Saturday, January 14, 2006

First Terrorist on the Moon?

With all the articles about Hamas launching Kassam rockets, I expect any day now to hear that they have successfully put a terrorist on the moon. Why is it that Israel "fires artillery" but Hamas "launches rockets"? Kassam rockets are also artillery, but how often do we hear about terrorists firing artillery into Israeli cities?

The Jerusalem Post had a very short piece on Friday:
Two Kassam rockets land near Kibbutz Carmia

Two Kassam rockets launched from the northern Gaza Strip on Friday morning landed near Kibbutz Carmia south of Ashkelon.

No one was wounded and no damage was incurred as a result of the incident, Israel Radio reported.
Even the Israeli Press has been calling these rockets instead of artillery. In this case, the rocket not only was 'launched' but also 'landed'--no mention of aliens coming out, but by the same token there is nothing in the short article to indicate that this was a terrorist attack and not a Palestinian version of NASA attempting to send a rocket into space.

The worst case of this is the Washington Post which wrote on January 1st:
Israel has meanwhile declared the northern tip of Gaza a buffer zone and subjected it to regular artillery fire in an attempt to stop the launching of rockets at nearby Israeli towns; yesterday two Palestinians were killed.
Two days of artillery after a warning is "regular artillery fire".
Years of artillery fire at Israeli cities amounts to "the launching of rockets at nearby Israeli towns"--"at" the towns, as if they are just being fired in their general direction.

Why can't the media just say that Hamas is firing artillery into Israel?

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