Satire: The Mass Media Guide on How to Become an "Activist"
By Steven Plaut
March 19, 2004



1. Murdering people makes you a killer or a terrorist. But if those murdered are Jews then you are an activist.   You might also be a militant.

2. Crashing jet planes into buildings makes you a terrorist. But attempting to shoot down civilian planes landing in Israel makes you an activist.

3. Placing large bombs on trains in Madrid makes you a terrorist, but placing bombs on Israeli buses full of children makes you an activist.

4. Blowing up a nightclub in Indonesia full of Australians makes you a terrorist. But mass murdering Israeli children makes you an activist.

5. Snipers shooting innocent people in Virginia are terrorists. Snipers shooting Jews in the West Bank are activists.

6. People trying to ram soldiers with trucks and cars are generally terrorists unless the soldiers in question are Jews.

7. Throwing rocks at civilians makes you a criminal and maybe even a terrorist, and if you do so off a California overpass you will get jailed. But throwing the same rocks at Jews in Israel makes you an activist and maybe even a professor at Columbia University.

8. Denying the Holocaust makes you a racist and a fascist bigot, unless you are an Arab, in which case it makes you a moderate, at least if you deny the Holocaust in grammatically correct English.

9. Hiding behind children when you shoot weapons at soldiers makes you a coward and a villain, unless you are a Palestinian or an Iraqi Baathist.

10. Murdering children makes you a fiend and maybe a Nazi unless the children are Jews, in which case you are an activist with legitimate grievances.

11. 9-11 and 3-11 terrorism has no underlying causes or root grievances, but Middle East activism in which Israelis get mass murdered does - because of Israeli insensitivity and because Palestinians feel occupied.

12.  When Bosnians or Albanians in Kosova get mass murdered, that is a war crime. When Jews get mass murdered, this is their comeuppance for their insensitivity, and of course it is reactive activism.

13.  When Americans assassinate al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders anywhere they find them, this is part of the war against global terrorism. When Israel shoots terrorist leaders, it is an obstacle to peace and is unjustifiably deactivating activism.

14.  When the U.S. jails hundreds of terrorists in Guantanamo Bay without trial, this is because the jailed are terrorists. When Israel jails people who have mass murdered Jews, this is undermining the peace process and antagonizing activists.

15.  Firing mortars and rockets into civilian areas in the Balkans makes you a war criminal. Firing them from Gaza into Jewish homes makes you a militant. Protesting wearing of fur also makes you a militant, or maybe an activist.




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