“ . .  an Israel Defense Forces tank opened fire and killed two Hamas activists early Sunday morning near the fence along the Green Line. . . . The two were seen crawling some 200 meters from the fence, and the IDF believes they were planning to set an explosive charge. Hamas confirmed the two were members of its organization.”

Activists? What were they, campaigners against whale farming, or for a higher minimum wage, or a shorter school day? “Activist” is a strange term for people who were seeking to commit mass murder, and who belong to an organization whose charter states:

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it. . . . There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. . . .  Jihad is [our] path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of [our] wishes. . . . ”

When Haaretz isn’t referring to terrorists of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or the various PLO offshoots as “activists,” it calls them “militants”—a word that connotes, or used to connote, hard-boiled labor leaders and the like. And what, exactly, would Haaretz have called people in Germany in the 1930s who called for the destruction of the Jews and incited and perpetrated attacks against them—militants? Activists?

Last week the residents of Gush Katif, a Jewish community in the Gaza Strip, set off a firestorm in Israel by donning orange badges in the shape of the Star of David. The badges were meant to stir associations with the yellow Stars of David that Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis. Gush Katif is not only slated for destruction as part of the Israeli government’s “disengagement” plan; it is also—as a gesture of the Gaza terrorists’ “appreciation” for the plan—being subjected to round-the-clock bombardment with mortars and missiles. According to reports, not only the Gush Katif residents but IDF officers in the area are exasperated by the government’s refusal to give the IDF the green light to quash the bombardment, a refusal allegedly aimed at “softening up” the residents for their evacuation several months from now.

In other words, the Gush Katif residents are living in nonstop mortal danger and feel doubly abandoned by their government—both because they’re slated for evacuation and because they’re not being militarily protected. Nevertheless, their signaling of their despair with the orange stars sparked fierce protest in Israel across the political spectrum. Even right-wing politicians who oppose disengagement and sympathize with the Gaza Jews objected that this was going too far. The Gaza residents, even if eventually evacuated, will be financially compensated and reabsorbed in Israel—a far cry from the fate of Jews deported by the Nazis. After a couple of days, the Gaza residents heeded the protests and ended the campaign.

Fair enough; but if we’re going to protest offensive, inappropriate usages, why not pass it around equally? Which brings us back to Haaretz.

It struck me that during and since the orange-stars uproar, Haaretz, quietly and seemingly unnoticed, continues with its outrageous travesty of language in which cold-blooded genocidists are referred to in “neutral,” “objective,” politically-correct terms. After all, there may be someone out there who views the latest suicide bombers or knife murderers as “freedom fighters,” and whose feelings might be hurt if a word like terrorist was used to describe them.

And, of course, the world must know that Haaretz is an objective, nonpartisan observer. This Israeli newspaper will only use the language of CNN, the BBC, and the New York Times to describe ideological murders in Israel. The editors of Haaretz will not refer to the potential or actual killers of their own children as terrorists, but as activists. They’re, after all, part of the bigger, sophisticated world, not of little, parochial Israel.

Haaretz’s use of delicate terminology for today’s Nazis is no less an offense against truth, against the memory of what Jews have suffered, than the Gaza Jews’ use of the orange stars—arguably—was. The difference is that the Gaza Jews’ gesture was protested, and they heeded, respected, and responded to the protest. Haaretz, though, gets away with it.

P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Jerusalem whose work has appeared in many Israeli, Jewish, and political publications. Reach him at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.