On Oct. 7, 2023, Ismail Haniyeh’s terror organization slaughtered 1,200 people, in an attack that included mass abductions and rape.
That day, Hamas released video of Haniyeh admiring footage of the attack and leading other senior Hamas officials at prayer.
Later that month, while celebrating the attack as a resounding defeat for Israel that would lead to its demise, he publicly declared that the blood of Gazans was “needed” in order to rouse Palestinians.
In May, he again lauded the attacks and promised that his group will “continue the resistance against this enemy until we liberate our land, all our land,” a territory that for Haniyeh and Hamas includes all of Israel. “Palestine is from the sea to the river, and we will never, never, never recognize Israel,” Haniyeh announced in 2018 to a crowd warmed up on chants about an Islamic army that will march on the Jews.
And yesterday, the Hamas chief was killed in Teheran, presumably in an Israeli operation.
Much of the media was quick to frame the attack as one on a “moderate” figure.
Reuters posted a headline, since deleted, centering the story around Haniyeh’s relative moderation. Other news sites carry the Reuters article with the original headline. (See, for example, Voice of America; Financial Review; AOL and others.)
The article is framed around the assertion that, despite Haniyeh’s extremist rhetoric, which Reuters does acknowledge, “he was seen by many diplomats as a moderate compared to the more hardline members of the Iran-backed group inside Gaza.” (In contrast with this reference to the view of “many diplomats,” the article conceals less flattering views. It notes that “Israel regards” Haniyeh and his group as terrorists while neglecting to mention that the U.S., E.U., and others also proscribe Hamas as a terror organization.)
The BBC’s Yolanda Knell used almost identical language: “Despite his tough rhetoric, he was generally seen by analysts as moderate and pragmatic, compared to the more hardline Gaza-based leaders….” (As of this writing, the word “terror” does not appear on BBC’s live reporting page on the killing.)
And in an “explainer” to readers about who Haniyeh was, the Guardian employed similar language, referring to him as “a moderate figure” who had become “vital” to securing a ceasefire.
Is Haniyeh a moderate relative to more hardline Hamas officials? Yes, by definition. Every terrorist is moderate when compare to more hardline terrorists. Which is exactly what much of the press makes a point of doing.
Sky News’s Alex Crawford, for example, went even further, declaring that Haniyeh was considered a “very” moderate leader for Hamas.
The Associated Press characterizes him as “a more moderate force in Hamas.” France 24 states up front that he is “considered a pragmatist within Hamas and known for his calm demeanor.” Neither mention the word “terror.” CNBC presents Haniyeh as a moderate diplomat, who “served as the chief of Hamas’ politburo and was seen as a more relatively moderate figure within the organization as he led cease-fire negotiations and was the face of the group’s regional diplomatic efforts.”
Even before Oct. 7, Haniyeh’s Hamas was notorious for its campaign of murderous suicide bombings targeting buses and restaurants and the countless indiscriminate rockets it fires toward Israeli towns and cities. The word “moderate” does not fit the organization or its leadership in any way.
It doesn’t take a media wordsmith to figure out how to avoid that word when there is a need to compare Haniyeh to, for example, Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar. If the latter is even more extreme, than the former could be described as extreme, but less virulently so than his man in Gaza.