A guest post by AKUS

The airbrushing of Palestinian terrorism continues. Apparently even describing Palestinian terrorists as “militants” is now too much for the world’s media. They are now merely “intruders”, even when they murder a family of 5 including a baby of a few months and two little boys.

Harriet Sherwood in the Guardian:

The attacker or attackers scaled Itamar’s perimeter fence, triggering an alarm. Settlement security investigated but failed to notify the Israeli military. The intruders waited inside the settlement for some time after identifying their target, then entered the Fogels’ house through a window. [emphasis added]

CNN:

According to a military spokeswoman, an intruder entered the Israeli settlement of Itamar near the northern West Bank city of Nablus around 1 a.m., made his way into the family home and killed the two parents and their three children. [emphasis added]

Israel has complained about CNN’s choice of words:

Israel demands CNN apology over attack coverage (YNet)

Israel is demanding an apology from CNN over its coverage of Saturday’s terrorist attack in Itamar claiming it was “tendentious and deceptive.” Government Press Office director Oren Helman sent a letter to CNN’s Bureau Chief Kevin Flower saying he was astonished at the network’s coverage of the ruthless attack.

…. “Only you decided to use the term terrorist attack in quotation marks, as if this were not necessarily the case,” Helman wrote. “There is a limit to the extent of objectivity regarding such a horrific deed.”

…. The IDF’s official statement noted that forces were searching for a “terrorist” and not an “intruder” as the CNN report noted. The terrorist was also referred to as an “assailant” later in the report. There was no mention of the possibility this was the act of a Palestinian terrorist.

CNN appears to have amended its web page from this, the original version:

Actually, Helman needs to broaden his review of the way news about Israel is reported.  The BBC also managed a double. Quotation marks around ‘kills five Israelis’ and “intruder”.

Palestinian ‘kills five Israelis’ in West Bank

“The family – including three children – were stabbed to death by an intruder who broke into their home, Israeli media reported.” [emphasis added]

The media are going downhill steadily. Once, when there was still an element of conscience in the reporting about Israel, the media referred to terrorists as terrorists. Then they become militants, and now intruders – intruders who come into a house uninvited and cut the throats of a man and his wife and three of their children.