When you’re a journalist trying to make sense of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and you’d rather avoid making uncomfortable judgments, one convenient way to bury your head in the sand is to describe individual attacks as “tit for tat,” and the general situation as a “cycle of violence.”
This is the approach taken by the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Ed O’Loughlin:
Since peace talks were abandoned in 2000, 12 Israelis, including three minors, have been killed by Palestinian missiles in a deadly game of tit for tat across the border between Israel and Gaza.
Hundreds of Palestinian civilians and militants, including five children in the past fortnight, have been killed by artillery, tank and air strikes, which Israel says target only terrorists.
Victim status for everyone!
