Soccer Dad

Missile-leading modifiers

Continuing a trend of violence against Israel, terrorists from Hamas controlled Gaza fired a rocket into Israel, hitting a military training camp and injuring nearly 70 young men and women.

About 67 Israeli soldiers were wounded after a Qassam rocket launched from northern Gaza landed on a military base in the western Negev early Tuesday morning. Four soldiers were seriously injured in the attack, seven sustained moderate wounds, about 20 were lightly hurt and the rest were treated for shock. This is the largest number of casualties to date resulting from a single Qassam attack.

Last week, I criticized the Washington Post's Scott Wilson for referring to Qassams as "highly inaccurate." It is one of those biases that shows up in reporting from the Middle East. The threat to Israel is usually understated. There is, I suppose a justification for such terminology when the rocket causes relatively little damage. But today when a rocket hit its mark he was at it again.

The number of reported casualties was extraordinary for an attack involving the rocket known as a Qassam, a highly inaccurate weapon cut from lamp posts and other tubing that usually carries only a small amount of explosives in its warhead. Palestinian gunman compensate by firing the rockets with frequency, including more than 100 last month.

If Wilson't adding modifiers he might as well add "potentially lethal." His choice of "highly inaccurate" is purposeful and doesn't reflect well on him.

As long as he's giving background to the Qassam attack why doesn't point out the implication of terrorist groups destroying infrastructure to attack Israel?

Wilson's coverage of the immediate Israeli response stands in contrast to his reportage on the initial attack.

Some officials renewed that threat in the angry aftermath of Tuesday's strike. But the only military response occurred a few hours after the attack when Israeli aircraft fired on rocket-launch sites in Beit Lahiya. Four Palestinian children were injured in the strike, health officials in Gaza said.

He adds no modifiers here. No speculation. Wouldn't it be correct to report "rocket-launch sites placed unconscionably close to civilian dwellings?"

Steven Erlanger of the New York Times chose a different modifier

The crude Qassam rocket landed on an empty tent while young soldiers undergoing basic training at the Zikim base near the Gazan border slept in tents around it. They were struck by shrapnel from the rocket.

Yes it's "crude." Again, so what? It is designed to cause injury, death and destruction and this time it cause two out of those three. The rocket fulfilled its purpose, no modifier needed.

As Seraphic Secret points out

This attack indicates that that the terrorists have improved their ability to aim the Qassam rockets. These are not pin-point laser munitions, but they don't have to be. They are weapons of terror. Last week the Arab terrorists targeted a children's day care center. Today an army base. Soon the terrorists will improve the Qassam's range and the lethality of these rockets will make them something more than just a weapon of terror.

(Yes it's crude and inaccurate, but neither reporter drew the reasonable conclusion that the Qassam is becoming more sophisticated and accurate.)

HonestReporting describes why the term "homemade" isn't even accurate.

The word "homemade" is a strange term to use. These rockets are manufactured in industrial areas or have been transported across the porous Gaza-Egyptian border. While Qassam Rockets are not the most sophisticated military weapon, they do require both expertise and dedicated locations to manufacture. Although the Palestinians have located many of the Qassam "labs" within residential areas, the notion that these are some type of "homemade" devices is misleading.

But the standard modifiers for Qassams aren't chosen for their descriptive value. They're used to promote a narrative that Israel is secure from its enemies and that any response is, by definition, an overreaction.

And yet by now this shorthand is so common, that every time there's a Qassam attack Meryl Yourish calls them crude homemade rockets in tribute to the finely tuned sense of objectivity that reporters stationed in Israel regularly demonstrate.

qassams, media bias.