(...) by Remi Brulin, (..) whose work has been devoted to the “discourse of terrorism” and who has amply documented that the term is a meaningless concept that, from the start, has been used for propagandistic purposes. It’s hard to imagine an incident that more compellingly proves the point than this: “I wanted to cover the body in a black bag [reserved for terrorists]. After I was asked to take care of the body I saw that he was a Jew, and that it was mistake to speak of a terrorist. I immediately notified the police and we switched to a white ZAKA body bag.”
When they thought he was a Palestinian Arab, he was labelled a “terrorist,” and then soon as they realized he was an Israeli Jew, the label was instantly withdrawn for that reason alone, even though the conduct was the same. That’s the manipulative, malleable concept of “terrorism” in a nutshell. As Rudy Giuliani put it in 2007 when asked whether waterboarding was torture: “It depends on who does it.”
It doesn't, but to pretend is a powerful propaganda technique for sure.
Violence called "terrorism" is actually somewhat relevant in Israel. It's still not rivalling the trail of dead left by big tobacco, but clearly more relevant than in Europe or North America where such activities struggle to come close to the annual lethality figures of lightning strikes. So my usual reservations about errorism aren't fully appropriate in regard to the Levante. Still, the use of the term is inflationary and not particularly helpful in that region either. The association as mentioned in the quote appears to fuel domestic conflicts in Israel, as was predictable because a "them versus us" narrative is bound to not work without domestic troubles in a heterogeneous country which includes many of "them".
I'd advise them against using segregated body bags anyway, for that story has a second very ugly angle.
S O
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