An excellent Jonah Goldberg column (via InstantMan) about the growing tendency of Western media to put terrorists and defenders against terrorism on the same moral level—as long as the targets aren’t us. He hits one of my pet peeves: the increasing use of the morally neutral term “activist” to describe sick freaks who promote, carry out, and celebrate the murder of women and children.

The American reaction in the media and government to the perpetual violence is to rationalize it. More specifically, we, to use Moynihan’s phrase, define deviancy down. Members of Hamas - the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s bombing as well as numerous other terrorist attacks — are routinely called “activists” in the American media. NPR reports, “Palestinian anger increases each time Israeli troops attempt to kill one of their activists.” The latest Time magazine cover story on Middle East violence uses the word “activist” synonymously with how most of us would use the word “terrorist.”

In the United States, we are propagandized daily about how smoking is evil. Children are treated to endless commercials in which playground peers who encourage kids to smoke - or take drugs — are depicted as awful human beings. Hamas pressures children to become suicide bombers. The Palestinian Authority encourages children to hate Jews with a bloodlust normally associated with Nazis. But these people are only “activists” because they aren’t doing it to our children.