By now you’ve almost certainly heard about the latest deadly attack on a civilian outpost in Israel. Two gunmen, identified as Palestinians, opened fire Wednesday evening at a popular food and shopping complex in Tel Aviv, killing four Israelis and wounding at least sixteen others, one of them now listed in critical condition.
If you didn’t hear about it, you might have seen the headline yesterday on CNN’s breaking news account on Twitter, though you might have found the punctuation puzzling:
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Why is the word terrorists been placed in euphemistic quotes? Yesterday’s act of deadly aggression certainly had all the earmarks of terrorism. The gunman were dressed like Hasidic Jews and insinuated themselves among the other diners before rising from their table and opening fire.
If CNN’s editorial decision was curious, at least the network’s tweet was on-topic. The same can’t be said for another cable news outlet, MSNBC, whose man on the Arab Street, Ayman Mohyeldin, was there to provide this instantaneous “analysis” (via Jeff Dunetz):
There’s a tremendous amount of frustration among Palestinians who live in the occupied West Bank coupled with the shift of Israeli politics to the right, and that has led to even further measures of what Palestinians say is oppression in the occupied West Bank. The lack of any progress on the front with Gaza, it has been just a very – it’s been a recipe of disaster.
Nor was the barbarism limited to the cafe. As has become their wont, Arabs across the Middle East celebrated the attacks with fireworks and treats for the next generation of terrorists (whoops: “terrorists”):
Palestinians in Istanbul hand out sweets after Tel Aviv shooting https://t.co/epdE0Jiyyt @KhaledAbuToameh pic.twitter.com/6ZLBsbFBuh
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 8, 2016
*UPDATE*: Jeff Dunetz has called to my attention that CNN has added a “correction” to its online report on the shooting that reads, “As a result of an editing mistake, an earlier version of this story appeared to call into question whether the Tel Aviv attack was an act of terrorism. It undoubtedly was. The story was corrected.”
