21-Feb-17: Planning a trip got these British children arrested

No need to get overly concerned: it's just a
"drama/documentary" [Image Source]

Today is another of those fleeting moments when a Western country is again presented with evidence of something deeply malevolent festering in its midst.

Is this news going to get serious attention? Will it be reported in vague terms that carefully step around salient aspects? Will reasonable consumers of current events reporting come away with an actionable sense of a process underway that is gathering momentum?

From a variety of British sources, it emerges that police in the UK yesterday made a cluster of arrests of children on what sound like serious charges. In summary:

• Five teenagers were arrested by Met Police in London on Monday. 
• The suspicion is they were planning a trip "to join a banned terror group" [Daily Mail]. Their ages range from 15 to 19. All are males.
• Prior to the Monday arrests, police had carried out raids at four different homes on January 14, 2017. It's said that the raids were the prelude to yesterday's arrests.
• The police doing the arresting are all from the (London) Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command. Internally, it's known as SO15 and defined on the London Metropolitan police website in these not-so-very-clear terms: "The Operations Strand comprises of those units who directly deliver disruptions through both proactive and reactive operations, as well as direct engagements with communities and partners. The strand comprises of five sections: Investigations, Specialist Investigations, Local Operations, Ports and International Operations."
• It was formed in October 2006 with the merger of two predecessor units; the Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13) and Special Branch (SO12) [source].
• Quote: "Scotland Yard did not elaborate on which organisation the teenagers were attempting to join..." Naturally, the news reports we saw don't engage in idle speculation. 
• Those arrested are a 17-year-old male living in south London; a 16-year-old male living in a different south London location; a 17-year-old male living in west London; a 19-year-old male also living in west London but at a different address; and a 15-year-old male arrested in east London at a residence that, from the context, appears not to have been searched last month but which was searched yesterday. Another home, this one in Lambeth (a neighbourhood right in the middle of London) was also searched on Monday "in connection with the investigation".
• The five arrested individuals are said early this morning to have been detained under TACT, the name commonly given to the United Kingdom's Terrorism Act 2000. All five were being held as of a few hours ago in "a central London police station pending further enquiries" into their alleged "plans to travel to join a proscribed organisation". 

The BBC, which notoriously steps gingerly around the word "terror" in its news reports - unless it can quote someone authoritative using the word and then puts it between quotation marks - has a brief report on these events. Surprisingly, the current version of that BBC report ["London terror arrests: Metropolitan Police hold five teenagers", BBC, February 20, 2017] uses the actual word terror in the headline. But don't be surprised if that later gets removed by BBC editors (and note that we have it archived here just in case). It opens with this line:

"Five teenagers have been arrested in London on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts, the Metropolitan Police said."

Another British news source which knows the facts at least as well as we do, including the ages of those arrested, describes the people arrested as "men":

Five teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of terror offences in London. The five men, all aged under 20, were arrested on Monday on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts, the Metropolitan Police said... [Telegraph UK, February 20, 2017]

But at least four of them are not men. The average age of the five is 16.8. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child calls anyone under the age of 18 a child. And child offenders in the vague and ill-defined field in which the British arrestees allegedly engaged is not a British-only phenomenon as we tweeted a few days ago [here] in the wake of the arrest of a sixteen year-old girl in France.

How interesting it would be if we could find a common element, some shared belief or affiliation that ties her actions with the London Five? Come to that, what do the five Londoners have in common with each other, beyond being boys and residing in the British capital? Maybe something, maybe nothing, maybe a lust for travel. It's hard to know from the reports.

Still, here's a little context: according to a British news report from early this morning quoting a UK government source:

there were 255 terrorism-related arrests in Britain for the year ending 31 March 2016. The only age group to see a rise in the number of arrests was under-18-year-olds... 

So what might it mean for the UK if certain undefined groups of under 18s show an interest in the kind of travel that gets them arrested? Well, not being British, we wouldn't know. But we can't help noticing this report of a BBC television production that is going to be aired early next month:

The Attack: Terror in the UK | This World
With a mass-casualty terror attack in the UK seen as almost inevitable, this drama documentary dramatises what terrorism experts fear is the most likely scenario for Britain's next major terror attack. Counterterrorism police believe that the greatest threat to our security comes from Marauding Terrorist Firearms Attack (MTFA), which can result in dozens of fatalities even if armed police respond within minutes. There are more than a thousand high-priority terrorism suspects in the UK, but there are only enough surveillance officers to monitor a fraction of these at any time. Based on extensive research, The Attack: Terror in the UK tells the story of an Islamic State-inspired terrorist group planning a firearms attack and follows the ongoing police investigation. It focuses on Joseph, a young man who, while in prison for drug and firearms charges, is recruited, converted and radicalised by Islamic extremists - highlighting the fear that links are being forged between Jihadists and street gangs with access to automatic weapons.

It's scheduled to be screened on BBC Two television on Thursday March 2, 2017 at 9:00 pm, UK time. We hope there's an opportunity to view it from outside the UK. Could be interesting, not least because it got the BBC to speak the word "terror" without hanging it around some other person's neck. And as today's news shows, it's surely timely.

Though on reflection, wouldn't it be better for the Brits if the BBC - masters of selectively-opaque reporting, circumlocution and wrong-headed political "correctness" - were take this kind of robust approach in its news content and not only in its docu-dramas?

22-Jul-16: Who says the BBC never calls terror terror?

Currently appearing on the BBC website (if it has changed by the time
you click, here's the archived version)

Regular readers of this blog, and of the much-more focused and excellent BBC Watch, will be aware of the infuriating and ultimately dangerous practice at the BBC to (a) Never use the word terror outside of quotation marks and (b) To use it when it suits the editors.

Then there's another option: (c) To change their minds once or twice on a single day depending on... well, in truth, we don't know on what such editorial swings depend.

But they certainly happen. We watched it and then described it in "22-Mar-16: At the BBC, they're challenged by terror in quite revealing ways" when the BBC decision-makers couldn't quite determine whether their news consumers could be entrusted with knowing that terror played a role in the Brussels Airport terror massacre.

(In the end, they decided that it did not, then that it did, and eventually, later the same day, that it did not. We documented the silliness here.)

Rule of thumb: it almost never suits the editors and has not suited them for years, to use the word terror when describing any act of savagery, no matter how transparently jihadist in nature, when such acts are directed at Israelis. Check it out.

Knowing this, and understanding how much double-talk and hypocrisy lie behind it, take a look at this morning's BBC report from Brazil and the events we ourselves mentioned yesterday ["21-Jul-16: As the Olympics approach, Brazilian jihad comes into focus"]. The screen shot above show how that BBC item is currently headlined.

Click to see how very seriously the BBC
takes its own editorial guidelines - on paper

What's obviously going on is that, while BBC editorial guidelines are one thing, the decisions taken by the editors at the BBC on a given day are frequently another. 

We tried to lay out our view of those double-standards (we're being polite) in this post: "06-Jan-16: Perceptions and realities at the BBC". It includes a revealing (though discouraging) list of our earlier comments on this important issue, all of them addressing the BBC and its terror strategy from a critical perspective.

There's also the disturbing way the BBC pays what we consider to be self-evidently inadequate attention to the frequency and nature of terror attacks (whatever the BBC chooses to call them) against Israelis compared with its comprehensive and often up-close coverage of Israeli actions against the Arab side after those terror attacks happen, 

Over at BBC Watch, they address this very matter on a monthly basis via a statistical review, and in March 2016 provided this summary chart ["Reviewing the BBC News website’s coverage of terror in Israel"]:

From BBC Watch

As you mull over BBC's editorial practices, think of its standing as a publicly-funded (to the tune of an unparalleled billions of dollars each year), globe-straddling radio/TV/web/print colossus with a mission

to ensure that the BBC gives information about, and increases understanding of, the world through accurate and impartial news, other information, and analysis of current events and ideas.

Yep: Accurate and impartial, and it's clear that many people buy that. '

But closer inspection, and some informed knowledge of what goes on in Israel, and a person realizes this is how ideology-driven journalism works. All those well-rounded vowels, the pompous self-justifications and the serious-sounding guidelines don't change that. 

We can take comfort from the fact that today's BBC headline doesn't read "Violent extremism arrests in Brazil".

29-Jun-16: Footnotes to the Istanbul human-bomb horror

From ABC NEWS television coverage [here]

It's striking to read, on the morning after an awful massacre carried out by terrorists in one of the world's dozen busiest airports, that the first instinct of the politicians is to reach for a fig-leaf. And to be clear, it's surely not a uniquely-Turkish phenomenon.

What do we know now? According to Associated Press this morning

Suicide attackers killed dozens and wounded more than 140 at Istanbul's busy Ataturk Airport, as Turkish officials blamed Tuesday's massacre at the international terminal on three suspected Islamic State group militants. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said 36 were dead as well as the three suicide bombers. Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 147 were wounded. Another senior government official told The Associated Press the death toll could climb much higher...
Yildirim said the attackers arrived at the airport in a taxi and blew themselves up after opening fire... Another Turkish official said two of the attackers detonated explosives at the entrance of the international arrivals terminal after police fired at them, while the third blew himself up in the parking lot. The official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations, cited interior ministry information and said that none of the attackers managed to get past security checks at the terminal's entrance. Turkish airports have security checks at both the entrance of terminal buildings and then later before entry to departure gates...
Yildirim said there was no security lapse at the airport, but added the fact the attackers were carrying weapons "increased the severity" of the attack.

A BBC report today (archived here) points out that

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said early signs suggested the so-called Islamic State was behind the attack... Ataturk airport was long seen as a vulnerable target, our Turkey correspondent adds, reporting from a plane stuck on the tarmac in Istanbul. There are X-ray scanners at the entrance to the terminal but security checks for cars are limited.

Children run out of the airport terminal to safety
[Image Source]

BBC also points out that a US state department travel warning for Turkey, originally published in March and updated just this past Monday

urges US citizens to "exercise heightened vigilance and caution when visiting public access areas, especially those heavily frequented by tourists."

Our hearts go out to the Turks (where one of our children acquired some first-rate professional training at an Istanbul university a few years back), especially to those hurt last night, and to the families of those who tragically will not be coming home. The process ahead of them, adjusting to life after being the targets of a terrorist attack, is not simple and comfort is likely to come only in the far-distant future, if ever.

To recap on the basis of the brief, but authoritative, reports above:

1. Notwithstanding the horrific loss of life, "no security lapse" happened. 
2. Very fortunately, none of the attackers managed to get past security checks at the terminal's entrance. That must have been a great relief, says nobody.
3. Leaving aside the quality of the airport security arrangements, Ataturk airport security's checking of cars is "limited". (When the US very properly call for "heightened vigilance" by tourists, are we meant to know which airports adequately check incoming vehicles? How?)
4. In some way that is somehow significant, the killers arrived by taxi. Are vigilant travelers expected to avoid airports that allow taxis to pull up at the terminal? (Does anyone have a list?)
5. The attackers carried weapons and that "increased the severity". That might even be a reasonable observation until you start to ponder whether the authorities have an actual plan for preventing such weapons-borne atrocities in the future. 
6. The terrorists carried bombs. We wish the news reports had said they were bombs - human bombs. That is what each of the three known attackers was. It's what they ought to be called.

Note that neither AP nor BBC mention "terror" or "jihad" even once, in accordance with addled editorial policies that contribute nothing to ordinary people's comprehension of the issue and, in our opinion, add to the likelihood of yet more lethal political decision-making in the future.

No report anywhere (at least none we have seen) calls the Istanbul attackers what they actually are: "human bombs". This is a mistake because whatever brought them to Ataturk last night, this was about murder; suicide was never their goal. That's true even if the nature of the ideology likely motivating them made them indifferent to the outcome so far as it affected their own well-being and lives.

Last night's horror was based not on the self-destructive motivations that characterize suicide but by a profound, overwhelming hatred, identifiable in many places inside and outside Turkey at this very moment. It stems as well from a theologically-inspired sense of massively-lethal religious mission - something that is being inculcated into millions of people's heads at this minute, right under our noses.

UPDATE June 29, 2016 at 3:30 pm: The toll keeps rising...

"At least 41 people were killed, 130 injured Tuesday in a triple suicide bombing and gun attack at Istanbul's main Atatürk airport, in the latest deadly strike to rock Turkey's most-populated city, which had many similarities with the deadly attacks carried out in Brussels in March. Flights partially resumed in the airport on Wednesday morning, while many of the schedule flights were cancelled or delayed. Reports have said that one Ukrainian and one Iranian national was among those who were killed by the terrorist attack in the airport. Among the 37 identified victims were 10 foreign nationals and three dual citizens..." [Daily Sabah (Istanbul), today]

22-Mar-16: At the BBC, they're challenged by terror in quite revealing ways

We wrote earlier today ["22-Mar-16: Belgium's focus on Europe-based jihad just rose several notches"] that

Over at the BBC where using the word "terror" in news reports of jihadist barbarism of the sort that plagues our lives here is strictly controlled and mostly avoided [see "7-Aug-13: Political prisoners, political media"], it appears to have been a tumultuous day. Their lead story this morning appeared around 9:00 am London time under the heading "Brussels Zaventem airport and metro explosions 'kill at least 13'" [archived here], and had no mention of the word "terror". We and others noticed and criticized via Twitter which normally has little effect. Today however, some two hours later and with no fanfare or explanation, the same article (with the same URL) was given a new headline: "Brussels explosions: Many dead in airport and metro terror attacks" [archived here]. Fittingly, it calls the attacks terror - as it should. [Emphasis added]

To summarize, the BBC's editors decided this morning not to call the Brussels attacks terror. Then two hours later, they flipped and decided it was terror after all.

And now (polite but insistent drum-roll, please) the BBC has flipped again. Their report has a third version. It's up now as we write this.

Their main news story on the Brussels outrages, with the same URL as the two previous versions we just mentioned above, now has no mention of terror at all. (Just in case they change their minds again, the current version, as of 5:30 pm London time today, will remain archived here.)

The three screen shots below illustrate what happened during Tuesday.

Version 1 (Tuesday morning):

Version 1 | 9:31 this morning UTC | URL | Archived here

Headline:

• "Brussels Zaventem airport and metro explosions 'kill at least 13'" 

Opening line:

• Several explosions have struck Brussels airport and the metro system, causing at least 13 deaths, Belgian media say.

Version 2 (Tuesday afternoon):

 

Version 2 | 12:02 this afternoon UTC  | URL | Archived here

Headline:

• "Brussels explosions: Many dead in airport and metro terror attacks"

Opening line:

• Many people have been killed or seriously injured in terrorist attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station, Belgium's PM says.

Version 3 (Tuesday evening): 

Version 3 | 17:39 this evening UTC | URL | Archived here

Headline:

• "Brussels attacks: Zaventem and Maelbeek bombs kill many"

Opening line:

• More than 30 people are believed to have been killed and dozens injured in attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station.

So in the end, terrorism has been excised from the BBC report. Same important story. Three different vantage points. And no explanation from BBC management for the changes, and no sign that they want their news consumers to even know.

For the BBC, calling something terror involves operating within narrow, self-imposed doctrinaire guide-lines. They are enshrined in a policy document called "Editorial Guidelines in Full | War, Terror and Emergencies" [current version online on a BBC website here].

And as we have noted over the years, BBC guidelines are one thing. But what BBC editors do is frequently another. We have discussed the double-standards (a polite way of naming what we really mean) numerous times, most recently here: "06-Jan-16: Perceptions and realities at the BBC". Click that link and, in addition to the analysis we share, there's a substantial list of our previous comments, all critically addressing the BBC and its terror strategy.

The chronic, systemic issues which we have highlighted for years are among the most weighty and consequential that a publicly-funded, globe-straddling organization with a mission

to ensure that the BBC gives information about, and increases understanding of, the world through accurate and impartial news, other information, and analysis of current events and ideas.

ever faces.

It has to be said, and especially on a day as fraught and painful as today, that this is how ideological journalism works, no matter how well-rounded the vowels or how pompous the self-justification.

Meanwhile, the jihadists of ISIS have claimed the Brussels killings as their handiwork. See "Brussels attack: ISIS says it's behind terror that killed 30 in Belgian capital" via CNN, this evening.

06-Jan-16: Perceptions and realities at the BBC

Inside the BBC newsroom in Broadcasting House, London
[Image Source: BBC]

The BBC ("the largest broadcaster in the world"; "the World's Radio Station"; home to a close-to-incredible 22,000 employees) has much for which to answer in relation to how it systematically fails to call terror "terror". 

It's a painful subject not only because of the damage the BBC's resort to aggressive euphemisms does to people's understanding of terror, but also because of the blatant hypocrisy inherent in the way it adheres to the policy sometimes and ignores it other times. To deeply concerned observers like us, it's plain that the BBC's rule book [BBC Editorial Guideline: Language when Reporting Terrorism] provides a fig-leaf for journalistic values that do no credit to BBC management.

The estimable BBC Watch today posted the kind of well-written and penetrating article that makes its work so valuable. We're referring to "More evidence of BBC News double standards on use of the word terror". There, the writers remind us of what the BBC itself and the laws under which it operates say it's supposed to do, and then expands on

the BBC's inconsistent application of those editorial guidelines and the resulting two-tier system of reporting is evidence of precisely the type of “value judgement” it supposedly seeks to avoid and indicates that the choice of language when reporting acts of terror is subject to political considerations which undermine the BBC’s claim of impartiality. If further evidence of those double standards were needed, it could be found in an article published on the BBC News website on January 3rd under the title “Israelis charged over fatal West Bankfamily arson attack”.

Those are obviously serious allegations. The chronic, systemic issues to which they relate are among the most weighty and consequential that an organization with the mission

to ensure that the BBC gives information about, and increases understanding of, the world through accurate and impartial news, other information, and analysis of current events and ideas.

ever faces.

In its reporting of arrests made this past week following the deaths of three members of a single family in a house fire in Duma, a Palestinian Arab village, the BBC's news reporters and editors used

the words “Jewish terrorists” not in quotation marks and not as quoted text. This was the BBC speaking in its own voice.

Calling the Jewish Israelis who were taken into custody over the Duma deaths “suspected terrorists” is unexceptionable. Israel's government has referred to the lethal fire at the Duma home as terror from the outset. See, as an illustration, "PM condemns ‘horrific, heinous terror attack’ on Palestinians" in Times of Israel on July 31, 2015.

BBC newsroom [Image Source: BBC]

BBC Watch reminds us that other terror attacks, some of them among the most horrifying this country has ever known, stunningly failed to reach the BBC's call-it-terror threshold:

• The almost-unimaginably horrific throat-slitting murders of five members of the Fogel family from Itamar. Three little children, the youngest only 3 months old, along with their parents, killed in their beds as they slept at home in March 2011 (BBC report);
• The murder by shooting of Na'ama and Eitam Henkin of Neria in front of their four little children (the youngest 4 months old) in October 2015 (BBC report)
• The early-morning slaughter - by men using knives, axes and meat-cleavers - in a quiet Har Nof, Jerusalem, synagogue of four worshipers and a police officer in November 2014 (BBC report)
• The shooting death of Malachi Rosenfeld in June 2015 - three other Israelis were wounded in the terrorist gunfire. That attack in fact was never reported at all by the BBC.

BBC Watch says, and we certainly agree, that in deciding not to call these acts of murder "terror", while using "terrorist" to describe the unconvicted Israeli Jews arrested in the Duma case, the BBC ought to be required to tell its funding public why. 

Its management should also be called on to justify their engaging (as we say they are) in highly-politicized decision-making whose contours are influenced more by unspoken policy considerations than by the obligations imposed on the BBC by the laws under which it operates.

Here's some further reading from past posts of ours dealing with the BBC and its terror strategy:

• 08-Aug-15: Another BBC moment
• 01-Apr-15: A question for Jeremy Bowen and his morally-challenged BBC handlers
• 20-Dec-14: BBC, unable to call him "terrorist", says French police killed an "Allahu Akbar attacker"
• 01-Sep-14: Gaza, Israel, the BBC: What children - and their parents - ought to know
• 15-Aug-13: To promote something truly hideous, can't do better than adopt the BBC's approach
• 24-Mar-13: Seed of evil: Whitewashing terror at the BBC
• 10-Jan-13: When terror is ignored by news reporting agencies, the BBC for instance, what can we learn?
• 17-Feb-12: It's final: the BBC is relieved from having to reveal the results of in-house inquiry into whether it is biased against Israel
• 16-Aug-11: When the powers at the BBC put this much effort into something, they must really care
• 15-Jun-07: Journalistic Objectivity from BBC and Other Oxymorons
• 18-Jul-06: What Is It About the BBC?
• 14-Jul-06: A word about the BBC

Finally, on a more generous note, let's a take a moment to offer congratulations to BBC management for having just won a well-deserved major award from Honest Reporting. The prize and the attainments that earned it for them are detailed here.

10-Oct-15: There has never been and never will be a war on terror, and why this matters so much

Mourning at the Henkin couple's graves in Jerusalem [Image Source]

We were not able to attend, but at the heart-breaking funeral of Naama and Eitam Henkin on Friday October 2, 2015, some powerful thoughts were shared by Dr Yagil Henkin in memory of his murdered brother and sister-in-law. The whole text is online here, and appears as a full-page paid notice on page 3 of yesterday's paper edition of Haaretz. 

We think these few paragraphs extracted from Yagil Henkin's eulogy below get right at the heart of why Israel's struggle with incitement and glorification of the perpetrators is producing so few tangible results.

There's nothing new in this, but most (by far) of the news reporting we have seen since the latest outbreak of malicious savagery directed principally at ordinary, non-uniformed Israelis is superficial, un-curious as to motivations or detail, and misleading. The same can be said for most of the observations about the wave of terror attacks expressed publicly by non-Israeli political figures.

The murdered Henkins pose for a family shot 
just before the onset of Yom Kippur, two 
and a half weeks ago [Image Source]

...Eitam and Naama became involuntary fighters in this struggle. Eitam and Naama are person slain by acts of hostility. They are not “terror victims.” Do not call them “terror victims”. Do not say that Israel has a war on terror. Israel has no war on terror. There was never a war on terror, and never will be such war. 

Bernard Lewis, the great Middle-East scholar, once said (regarding the US’s “Global War on Terror”), that to declare war on terror is comparable to imagining Churchill, in the dark days of 1940, declaring in his famous speech to parliament something along the lines of: “We are fighting against submarines and warplanes, against tanks, against bayonets, against guns and three inch mortars! We will fight them on the beaches…” 

Technically this would have been correct. It would have also been complete nonsense. 

It was not the planes who fought the battle of Britain, but the pilots – British and German – and the nations – Britain and Germany – who sent them. Britain was fighting Nazi Germany, not planes and not submarines. There is no such thing as “terror of stones,” just like there is no “terror by individuals,” no “car terror,” nor is Jerusalem “plagued by stone throwing”. And similarly Eitam and Naama were not murdered (in contrast to a headline on a certain media site) – by a passing car firing at them. 

These are all methods. Not enemies. Terror is a tool. The one who uses terror is the enemy. Terror is the enemy’s tactic, knives and bullets – its weapons at hand. To say “We fight terror” is to say “We do not know who the enemy is; or we are not willing to define them as such.” In other words, “We have no strategy.” 

Do not fight terror, fight those who dictate it. I don’t mean, God forbid, to call for acts of vengeance against innocent Arabs. I’m also not implying that we should give up on war ethics and laws of war. My intention is that we should not pretend that there is no hostility, hatred, ideology, or agencies who manage terror. Nor should we pretend that there is no widespread support for terror. We should not forget that there is a religious and national conflict that has laid and continues to lay the foundation for terrorism.

Behind those murderers there is a society who supports this kind of warfare. A society which supports targeting civilians, a society which supports finishing off a young couple.
We ourselves say, rightly, “We should not be like them.” Then why do we lie to ourselves and say that there are no “them,” that there is no enemy but only an abstract and faceless “terror”? If we are fighting “terror,” then who are those “them”?  Do not promise that our hands will reach the murderers. Behind those murderers there is a society who supports this kind of warfare. A society which supports targeting civilians, a society which supports finishing off a young couple. (Thanks to God their children were not hurt; but do not credit the murderers with “mercy.”) The murderers are the hangmen. 

But those who preach that ‘here is a Jew and therefore he deserves death,’ - they will not be imprisoned. And those who today will give candies to children in order to celebrate the murder in cold blood of two more Jews, will pay no price. 

Eitam and Naama were not killed by “terror.” They are victims of an act of hostility. It was hostility behind the murder. Human beings driven by hatred went out to the road in order to murder Jews, and they succeeded. They took my brother from me and from my siblings; from Yishai they took his sister Naama; from my parents and from Naama’s parents they took their children; from the children – Matan, Nitzan, Neta and Itamar – they took their parents, they took the right to grow up in a family, with the experiences and memories of a warm, unified, and loving family. They took from you, who stand here, a talented and optimistic couple, who were destined to greatness. And they continue to take from everyone the sense of security. They were Arab murderers, backed by a too-large segment of Arab society, with far too little principled opposition to murder. 

An enemy. An enemy who utilizes Terror. 

Do not degrade their memory by turning them into victims of a force of nature. Debate about policy, not about the murdered. Do not find justification and sympathy for murderers. Keep your empathy for the children who were left orphans, to the parents who were left bereft. And for the people of Israel, who still have a long way before being able to sit peacefully beneath their vines and fig trees.

The people who stand behind the terror, those who incite terror, those who glorify and excuse and explain away the terror - each of them is complicit in the terror attacks that have left inconsolable mourners and devastated lives in the wake of their sickening actions. These are people, with addresses and job titles and responsibilities. They depend for their power on the consent and support of ordinary citizens, paying customers, non-governmental organizations, foreign aid, public opinion.

Until terrorism is better understood, they will keep getting away with their evil.

19-Mar-15: In Tunisia, terrorists target tourists... again

Evacuating victims of Wednesday's terrorist attack in Tunisia
[Image Source]

A murderous attack by terrorists in broad daylight yesterday (Wednesday) left at least 19 people killed on the streets of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia.

"They just started opening fire on the tourists as they were getting out of the buses ... I couldn't see anything except blood and the dead," the driver of a tourist coach told journalists... [Reuters, March 18, 2015]

The victims were assaulted outside the National Bardo Museum, located inside the "heavily-guarded" parliament compound. Other than two of the attackers, the dead (the numbers seem uncertain even now) are reported to be made up of 5 Japanese, 4 Italians (among hundreds from an Italian cruise ship, the Costa Fascinosa, touring the western Mediterranean), 2 Colombians, 2 Brits, 2 French, 2 Tunisians - one a civilian, one a police officer - and individuals from South Africa, Poland (perhaps 2), Australia (he may also be one of the two Colombian victims) and Spain. Dozens more were left injured, and some people are still regarded as "missing", including 14 (more or less) from the cruise ship.

The president of Tunisia says his country will now fight terrorism "without mercy", according to the BBC. Interesting to see how the BBC's notorious guidelines make it impossible for them to call yesterday's cold-blooded murders "terrorism", though their reports do freely quote other people - such as Tunisia's political leaders and security officials - using the "T" word.

Tunisia is "the Arab world’s most successful democracy" [NYTimes] having "recently completed its first free presidential elections and a peaceful rotation of political power". It's also "one of the biggest sources of foreign fighters joining the Islamic State" [NYTimes].

The new Tunisian prime minister, Habib Essid, who took office last month ["Tunisia's secular-Islamist coalition takes office", Al Ahram], said "two or three accomplices might still be at large", and urged "national unity", calling the massacre “the first operation of its kind ever to occur in Tunisia”. 

The synagogue in Djerba where a previous human bomb attack
targeted civilians, including tourists visiting Tunisia [Image Source]

The first? That's true only if we ignore (and ignore is exactly what most parts of the news media are doing) the April 11, 2002 Djerba synagogue bombing in which terrorists operating on behalf of Al Qaeda deployed a human bomb and a truck full of explosives to attack people, most of them tourists, visiting a historically-significant (and exceptionally beautiful) Tunisian synagogue. The death toll was heavy: 14 German tourists, 3 Tunisians, 2 French. 

Terrorism rarely needs a trigger. But there is speculation [here, for instance] that Wednesday's massacre is 

linked to the death of Ahmed al-Rouissi, Tunisia’s most-wanted terrorist, who had become a senior leader in Isil’s Libya group. Accused by the Tunisian government for a string of terrorist attacks in his home country, he was killed last weekend in a clash with Libyan militiamen.

And

Al Rouissi was one of the most wanted men in Tunisia, where he was considered the mastermind of a string of attacks carried out by the Ansar Al Shariah movement... Al Rouissi fled to Libya where he began fighting under the banner of the Daesh [ISIS] group, which already controls about a third of Syria and Iraq. Tunisia’s Interior Ministry has not confirmed Al Rouissi’s death, though the local Press has been filled with reports on the incident. [Khaleej Times, March 16, 2015]

BBC Watch has done a good job [for instance here] of tracking the history of anti-Jewish violence in Tunisia and the deaf ear and blind eye provided by the BBC.

What will be? For the optimists, there is the fact that, in the past few hours, the international community has sprung into decisive action. The U.N. Security Council last night "condemned the Bardo museum attack saying that no terrorist action can reverse the path of Tunisia toward democracy..." [Associated Press] and offering condolences to the victims. According to Xinhua (which calls the killers "terrorists" in quotation marks lest we suspect the Chinese news-agency of taking sides on such contentious matters) the UNSC "underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice." 

Fierce determination of this sort (excuse our cynicism) ignores the way the UN has for years struggled with defining terrorism. Because of "a lack of consensus on the definition of this phenomenon", it has consistently failed and

"a UN Ad Hoc Committee to Eliminate Terrorism, created by the General Assembly back in December 1996, has remained deadlocked as it tries to reach agreement on a comprehensive draft convention to eliminate terrorism" [Aljazeera]

We don't know any informed sources who believe the UN is ever going to get past that problem. The consequences of its condemnation and call to action in the wake of yesterday's terrorism are unfortunately predictable.

18-Sep-14: Is it activism when they say they need to behead you?

Once, in a more innocent era, beheading was
dismissed as just a word. Placard-carrying
youth at a Sydney Moslem protest, 2012
[Image Source]

It's right and appropriate that Australia's ABC use the word terror in connection with today's reporting of the country's largest counter-terror activity in history. But for how long?

When Islamist sociopaths in the Sydney 'burbs threaten to murder and/or behead Australians, that's terror, and the people doing it are terrorists. But when they or their cousins in their Middle East villages threaten the very same to Israelis or to Arabs who pray in a different direction or whose view of their shared religion is different in some big or small way, why are they then called militants or activists?

The head of Reuters in the days right after 9/11 said the reason is "that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" [Sydney Morning Herald, 2004]. But we, and that includes the media, have to get this right. There is a way to know terror, to define terror, to classify certain actions and people as terrorist. Getting this wrong has huge life-and-death consequences. The senior people at the BBC don't agree, and say instead that using the word "terrorist" "can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding":

...we don't change the word "terrorist" when quoting other people, but we try to avoid the word ourselves; not because we are morally neutral towards terrorism, nor because we have any sympathy for the perpetrators of the inhuman atrocities which all too often we have to report, but because terrorism is a difficult and emotive subject with significant political overtones. [BBC: Language when Reporting Terrorism]

That's one of the reasons people who think the way we do have for years tried to publicly shame the BBC's policy guidelines [full text online here] on how and when to use "terror".

If Australian news reports this evening referred to the people who threaten to behead other Australians by calling them militants or activists, most members of their Australian audience would be outraged.

But as Israelis, we have gotten used to the reality of reporters and their editors engaging in walking-on-eggshells terminological acrobatics in order to disgracefully avoid using the one accurate descriptor: terrorist.  

Same protest, same Sydney public park, even
younger supporter of beheading for the sake
of Islam [Image Source]

A seminal article by Daniel Pipes in the New York Sun ten years ago surveyed the state of the euphemisms-for-terrorism art. His listing included activists (Pakistan Times).assailants (National Public Radio), attackers (Economist), bombers (The Guardian), commandos (Agence France-Presse which also called them "membres du commando"), criminals (Times of London), extremists (United Press International), fighters (Washington Post), group (The Australian), guerrillas (New York Post in an editorial), gunmen (Reuters), hostage-takers (Los Angeles Times), insurgents (a New York Times headline), kidnappers (The Observer), militants (Chicago Tribune), perpetrators (New York Times), radicals (BBC), rebels (Sydney Morning Herald), separatists (Christian Science Monitor), 

(A good thing suicide bomber is not on his list: if we had our way, no one would ever use that term. Those people are human bombs.)

A year ago, we wrote here about how

George Carlin, the great and late, joked that people once used to get old and die but not any more. Nowadays they become pre-elderly; then turn into senior citizens; then pass away in a terminal episode or following a negative patient care outcome or in response to a therapeutic misadventure. The world is poorer with him gone. But with the greatest of respect (non-euphemistically, that would be: recognizing the utter foolishness of what people routinely do), it's not at all humorous when the authorities hijack our language in order to advance policies which, if they had to explain them, would be offensive, repugnant and unacceptable.

The terrorists are a serious threat to just about everyone, and it's ludicrous to think "we" have "them" on the run. The terrorists can do immense harm, turn people's lives upside down, inflict huge pain and destruction. But unless we let them, they cannot change the shape of society. Those euphemisms and the fuzzy, agenda-driven thinking behind them, however, can do immense harm to the ability of civilized countries to keep their people and their achievements safe. What we do with words really does make a difference.

6-Jun-10: It's not that complicated: Is IHH a humanitarian group or a terrorist group?

The thug-enhanced flotilla that sought to break through the Israeli embargo on the port of Gaza was backed by a Turkish organization called IHH (Islan Haklary Ve Hurriyetleri Vakfi in Turkish). Are they pure as the driven snow? Or is this an organization compromised by deep connection to terrorism?

It's worrying and infuriating to see how this straightforward matter is being manipulated so that the credibility of the answer depends on how much you hate Israel.

First, the relatively uncontroversial aspects... IHH was founded in 1992. The CIA began tracking them in 1996 because of a perception of radical Islamist leanings. As one study has observed: "Like many other Islamist charities, the IHH has a record of providing relief to areas where disaster has struck in the Muslim world. However, the organization is not a force for good."

That study explains:

"That's because the Turkish nonprofit belongs to a Saudi-based umbrella organization known to finance terrorism called the Union of Good (Ittilaf al-Kheir in Arabic). Notably, the Union is chaired by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who is known best for his religious ruling that encourages suicide attacks against Israeli civilians.  According to one report, Qardawi personally transferred millions of dollars to the Union in an effort to provide financial support to Hamas"

Their activities caught the attention of Evan Kohlmann, an investigator of terrorist groups. He published a little-noticed essay titled "Shooting the Messenger: A Look at the Facts on the Turkish Aid Group IHH" a few days ago. It's worth a few moments' reading.

When I first published a research paper four years ago with the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) on the Turkish Muslim charitable group Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), I didn't imagine it would get much of a response outside the academic conference in which it was presented in Copenhagen. However, as a result of this weekend's tragic Israeli raid on an IHH-sponsored flotilla of vessels attempting to break the ongoing blockade on Gaza, the group has suddenly jumped into the headlines, and has become a focus of intense debate over the intentions of the flotilla organizers and the controversial killing of at least 9 would-be participants by Israeli commandos.
...I'm rather mystified why the flotilla killings--whether right or wrong--would have any bearing on the factual question of whether the IHH has engaged in illicit financing and episodic support to extremist groups. The evidence in this regard is fairly weighty, and much of it comes directly from the Turkish government -- not the United States, nor the Israelis.

He describes how Turkish police raided IHH headquarters in Istanbul at the end of 1997 and had its leaders arrested. Five months later, they faced formal legal charges connected with explosives, bomb making and jihad. Evidence was presented from a French source that IHH's true goals were

"overthrowing democratic, secular, and constitutional order present in Turkey and replacing it with an Islamic state founded on the Shariah."

A second line of connection to jihad: IHH was connected to the attempt by a a jihadist, Ahmed Ressam, the so-called Millenium bomber. Ressam was convicted of attempting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on New Year's Eve 1999. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison, but in February 2010 an appellate court held the sentence to be too lenient, and ordered that it be extended. In that prosecution, the noted French counter-terrorism magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere took the stand and testified that IHH had played what he called "an important role" in the LAX plot:

"The IHH is an NGO (a non-governmental organization) but it was kind of a type of cover-up… in order to obtain forged documents and also to obtain different forms of infiltration for Mujahideen in combat. And also to go and gather[recruit] these Mujahideens. And finally, one of the last responsibilities that they had was also to be implicated or involved in weapons trafficking."

As Evan Kohlmann writes, none of this information is sensitive or secret.

"Nor is it particularly difficult to come by. Turkish government officials have openly acknowledged as much in major Western media outlets."

The French judge was interviewed in the last few days by Associated Press.

The Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, known by its Turkish acronym IHH, had "clear, long-standing ties to terrorism and Jihad," former investigating judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

This information is freely available on the web. You don't need to be a terrorism specialist to see and be troubled by it. So why are otherwise credible sources raising snakey questions that undermine the allegations against IHH as if they were part of an Israeli conspiracy? For instance:

• "The IHH has been accused by Israel of funneling support to militant organizations across the Muslim world, a charge the group denies."[Christian Science Monitor]
•  "'Terror' smear against IHH springs from a familiar source" [Mondoweiss - and no prizes for figuring out where that familiar source resides]
• "Israel starts smear campaign in EU against Turkish charity" [World Bulletin]
• "The Islamic charity which largely funded the aid flotilla... Its inspiration is unapologetically religious but the IHH insists its mission is purely humanitarian, despite Israeli claims that it supports the armed activities of Hamas. It is certainly rich. ...It bought a 15-year-old ferry, the Mavi Marmara, for more than $1m (£686,000). It also has some powerful backers in the governing party, the AKP." [BBC]

You don't need to buy Israel's case to see that, being generous, IHH has a murky past and a highly compromised standpoint when it comes to jihad and acts of terror.