Reader objects to JTA reference of ‘terrorist’ as ‘gunman’
Dear Editor:
A Feb. 28 Jewish Telegraphic Agency news item in the Crescent City Jewish News reported that “a gunman” murdered Elan Ganeles, a young man from Connecticut, on a road near Jericho. From that description, one could be misled into thinking that Elan was killed in a robbery or perhaps a road rage incident, not in an ideologically driven hate crime.
The Israeli and American governments, and every Israeli news media outlet, have described the murder as a terrorist attack and identified the killers as Palestinian Arab terrorists who attempted to murder a number of Jewish drivers passing by before they succeeded in killing Elan.
If a White supremacist singled out and shot at Jewish drivers in New Orleans, murdering one of them, would we refrain from acknowledging that the killer was motivated by a hateful racist ideology? Would we use euphemisms such as “gunman” instead of the correct term: “terrorist”? The murderer of Elan Ganeles was a Palestinian Arab terrorist and he obviously murdered Elan for the “crime” of being Jewish; there’s no reason to refrain from saying so.
