Letters to the editor
Readers respond
A terrorist is not a ‘gunman’
A Jan. 6 Jewish Telegraphic Agency news article in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle described how Palestinian Arab terrorists recently ambushed an Israeli civilian bus and other motorists, murdering two elderly women and a man who was driving with his young son, and wounding eight others (“3 Israelis killed in West Bank terror attack”).
There was just one problem: The article never characterized the killers as “terrorists.” They were called “gunmen” (three times) and “shooters.” A gunman is a man with a gun; a shooter is somebody who shoots a gun. There is no value judgment attached to either term; they could be cops or robbers. That’s not right. We have to be able to make moral distinctions between the good guys and the bad guys. If someone who assaults a bus with automatic gunfire, murdering elderly passengers, is not a terrorist, then the word has no meaning.
Moshe Phillips
National chairman
Americans For A Safe Israel
New York, New York
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