Ed O’Loughlin of the Sydney Morning Herald breaks two rules in this snippet about the Gaza rocket wars:
Since Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip last year the conflict here has resolved itself into a tit-for-tat cycle of long-range barrages. With no local Israelis left to shoot at, the Palestinian militant factions – with the general exception of the ruling party, Hamas – have repeatedly violated last year’s self-imposed ceasefire by launching hundreds of crude home-made “Kassam” rockets across the border into Israel.
The effect? O’Loughlin minimizes the escalating the conflict by describing a morally equivalent tit-for-tat cycle of violence and then making light of the rocket’s danger by emphasizing the so-called home-made crudeness. If O’Loughlin wants to a better example of a home-made rocket, Time magazine honored Robert Goddard (pictured) as one of the most important people of the century.
