Rabbi Avi Shafran

Surely you heard about the "violence [that] broke out. between an Arab and Israelis. at Los Angeles International Airport" on the Fourth of July.

That was how a July 6 article in the Los Angeles Times referred to the murder of two Jews and the injuring of several others by an Egyptian national who approached LAX's El Al ticketing counter and proceeded to shoot people.

Here we were, silly us, convinced that Mohamed Hadayet, armed with two handguns and a knife, had been exclusively to blame for the carnage. Apparently, though, we somehow overlooked the fact that, in addition to the young woman and the father of five he killed and the several others he wounded, Mr. Hadayet perished as well, felled by a security guard's bullets. "Violence between an Arab and Israelis" - how else would one put it?

Well, to be entirely truthful, I can think of a few ways. "Arab violence against Jews," for one. Or even "Anti-Semitic Arab violence," for another. Or just plain old "Arab Jew-hatred." One doesn't want to quibble, but - with all due respect to the authorities, who weren't immediately able to confirm that Mr. Hadayet, who an Arab former employee claims hated Jews, hated Jews - those are perfectly fine, and considerably more accurate descriptions. And one wonders, further, just what exactly it would it take for the media to call the cold blooded murder of Jews. the cold blooded murder of Jews? Would the victims have to present themselves to be killed? Would they have to smile at the gunman, or take care not to turn away or flee?

Not long ago, The New York Times used a phrase similar to the one employed by the Los Angeles Times, in a different yet not-unrelated context. Referring to the Crown Heights riots of 1991, during which Jewish residents of that Brooklyn neighborhood cowered in fear of rampaging hoodlums (who attacked Jewish residents of the area, and one of whom brutally murdered a young Jewish scholar), the paper of record described the happenings as "violence between blacks and Orthodox Jews."

Would either Times, West coast or East, ever describe a rape as "violence between Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones" or a lynching as "violence between blacks and whites"?

When it comes to Jews, though, being attacked is apparently the effective equivalent of attacking. Stopping bullets with Jewish bodies seems to be regarded as no less violent an act than shooting bullets at them.

We've all seen such absurdity parading as objectivity in reportage from the Middle East, where fairness and accuracy regularly fall prey to a perversely "balanced" portrayal of two morally diametric sides as ethical equals. One population may target innocents and rejoice in every gallon of blood it spills, and the other may be seeking no more that to protect its citizens from that hostility and bloodshed; but no matter. There is no right or wrong, no good or bad, only two parties. And the violence, of course, "between" them.

Now, though, the bizarre mentality of imposing moral parity where there is none is revealed rampant not only in reports from Jerusalem or Ramallah but anywhere Jews are hated or attacked.

Over sixty years ago, in a seminal essay about how only fealty to the Jewish religious tradition can truly protect Jews, the revered sage Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman lamented how so many Jews tended to credulously place their trust in an assortment of doomed "isms." He referred to things like internationalism, humanism, socialism, and secular Zionism.

Were we to update the list, we might consider adding "objective journalism."