After Radical Govt Now Looking Into Use Of Militant Word

---

 


The government is looking into the use of the word "militant" to refer to Palestinian combatants by The Star.
A Twitter user complained about the use of the word, prompting Communications and Multimedia Minister Saifuddin Abdullah to say he will look into the matter.
"I will check immediately, thank you," he said in a Twitter post.
This was in relation to a caption used for a video about renewed fighting between Palestine and Israel.
The caption read: "Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza on Wednesday and Palestinian militants fired multiple rocket barrages at Tel Aviv and the southern city of Beersheba in the region's most intense hostilities in years".
Yesterday, Saifuddin revealed that RTM's Mandarin News was also slapped with a show-cause letter for referring to Hamas as "radical".
The use of words to refer to Palestinian combatants has become a hot issue amid public outrage at the disproportionate response by Israel.
Both Palestinians and Israeli combatants refer to each other as "terrorists".
For those supporting the Palestinian cause, the combatants are seen as resistance fighters struggling against Israeli occupiers.
For those supporting the Israeli cause, the Palestinian combatants are labelled as terrorists and vice versa.
The Malaysian media generally do not use the word "terrorist" to refer to either side and has instead opted for more neutral words.
However, they have still triggered controversies amid the outrage.
For those who may not be familiar with the lexicons, here is an Oxford Learner's Dictionary of the words deemed inappropriate by the government:
Radical: In favour of extreme and complete political or social change.
Militant: A person who uses, or is willing to use, force or strong pressure to achieve their aims, especially to achieve social or political change.
Terrorist: A person who takes part in terrorism.
Terrorism: The use of violent action in order to achieve political aims or to force a government to act.
Palestinian combatants have generally responded to Israeli violence by firing rockets.
Meanwhile, Israel, which has an air force, tends to respond disproportionately through airstrikes.
The latest violence erupted after Israeli police stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a major Islamic holy site in Jerusalem.
Despite the outrage every time violence erupts every few years, world powers and Palestine's regional neighbours have done little to resolve the Israel occupation of Palestinian territory.
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947 outlined the borders of a future Palestinian state but the stalemate has allowed more Israelis to settle on internationally recognised Palestinian territory.
Palestine is divided into two governing factions with the more moderate Fatah controlling the West Bank while Hamas controls the Gaza strip.
Over the decades, fighting has erupted between Hamas and the Israeli army every few years.
Scholars such as Noam Chomsky have argued that the longer the stalemate lasts, the less viable a Palestinian state will be as more Israeli settlers scatter over the occupied territory which he described as "a patchwork of illegal settlements and isolated Palestinians canton". - Mkini

---