On Saturday night, a Palestinian terrorist opened fire on a group of border police officers and civilian security guards at the Shuafat security checkpoint in eastern Jerusalem.
The terrorist, who is still on the run, has been identified as a 22-year old male from Shuafat named Udi Kamel Tamimi. He hitchhiked to the checkpoint, got out of the car, and opened fire.
Tamimi severely wounded a former Israel Defense Forces soldier and now security guard, David Morel, and murdered Noa Lazar, an 18 year-old border police officer.
Noga Tarnopolsky is a veteran Israeli journalist and analyst with two decades of experience covering the Arab-Israeli conflict for multiple news organizations, including The Daily Beast and The Los Angeles Times. The Swiss-raised, Amherst-educated journalist has reported from at least eight countries across the globe.
Only hours after the attack, Tarnopolsky posted this on her Twitter account:
The trend of infantilizing military personnel continues… Sgt. Noa Lazar was not murdered. She was a combat soldier and died in the line of duty. https://t.co/5xj77iyzHO
— Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) October 9, 2022
Yet Tarnopolsky’s definitions of terrorism and murder are seemingly not in line with universal definitions.
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According to the FBI and the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School, murder is when someone intentionally kills another person. Accordingly, it cannot be disputed that Noa Lazar was murdered, even though she was a soldier.
A question remains about whether Saturday’s attack was an act of terrorism.
Unsurprisingly, definitions of terrorism are ambiguous and highly politicized. However, there is a common thread among various sources: the underlying motivations and impact of the attack.
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Journalists at The Atlantic distinguish between murder and terrorism, describing the latter as “public violence to advance a political, social, or religious cause or ideology.”
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) distinguishes between murderers and terrorists as well, writing “Whereas terrorists commit acts of violence for political gain, mass murderers lack this ideology.”
Robert J. Art and Robert Jervis who passed away in 2021, are two prominent political science scholars and authors who examined what separates terrorism from all other acts of violence. They develop these definitions further, and dubbed terrorism “the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political change.”
Indeed, these three definitions of terrorism all have a common thread of political or ideological motivations. Jervis and Art give strong evidence that terrorism includes the psychological impact that follows from the attack.
Undoubtedly, the shooting at the Shuafat border crossing was an act of terrorism based on all three definitions.
Hamas’ praise for the attack reflects a political aim, which reinforces that the attack was an act of terrorism. The US Department of State designated Hamas as a terrorist organization in 1997.
“These operations carry a message that the revolt of our people is in progress and will not subside and that the operations, shootings, and gunfire of our youth in revolt will haunt the occupiers and herds of settlers everywhere in response to their crimes and their incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” Hamas commented.
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Tamimi was motivated by promoting the political ideology of these Gaza- and West Bank-based terrorist organizations, as further attested by the celebrations and fireworks over Shuafat later that night.
Lone wolf attacks are a key strategy for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad because they can occur anywhere, anytime, and can be carried out by anyone.
Tarnopolsky’s analysis has been wrong before. When former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s government was sworn in, she incorrectly asserted in The Daily Beast that his Yamina party “mostly” represents “Jewish West Bank settlers.”
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Notably, Tarnopolsky referred to Russian soldiers as “terrorists” just a day after the attack that killed Noa Lazar. Her definition of terrorism seems to change depending on the context:
Zelensky, asking Ukrainians to remain in shelters after a tough morning, says terrorists "launched dozens of missile from Iranian Shahed drones" targeting energy facilities throughout the country… and people, goals specially chosen to cause as much damage as possible." pic.twitter.com/TSzol7rT9q
— Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) October 10, 2022
As the situation in the West Bank escalates further, with numerous attacks against civilians and Israeli soldiers taking place each day, it is important for journalists covering the conflict to focus on reporting the facts and not use politicized words out of context.
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