The announcement by Fatah and Hamas of a unity deal has prompted mainstream media to engage in a predictable semantic game – using all kinds of verbal distortions to keep from calling Hamas what it really is – a certified terrorist organization. Witness, for example, the New York Times version in its April 24 edition, which runs an extensive article that carries the following headline:  “Palestinian Rivals Announce Unity Pact, Drawing U.S. and Israeli Rebuke.”(Page A14). This puts the identity of Fatah and Hamas on a fairly equal scale, scrubbing in the process any hint of terrorism in defining Hamas. Ditto the lead paragraph of the dispatch by Times’ correspondents Jodi Rudoren and Michael Gordon, which tells readers about a “new deal announced by feuding Palestinian factions, including the militant group Hamas.” “Militant,” of course, is the media’s favorite semantic disguise of terrorism.  Excapt it...(Read Full Post)