The headline of this Reuters story is Palestinians in Hebron Kill Suspected Collaborators. Note that there are no quote marks on the word "collaborators." They probably ran out, after using them all up on the word "terrorist."

Unlike terrorists, there's no danger that anyone might equate collaborators with freedom fighters, I guess.

If the media were in the habit of being truthfull or consistant, they would call them "suspected Palestinian moderates" or "suspected Palestinian antiwar dissidents."

But of course, they're not so they don't

...Or martyrs.

Ok, I figure someone might as well debate the point for the sake of argument, so I'll throw myself on the sword. Oh wait ... Palestine and Israel - ok, I'll throw myself on the explosives.

The thing about saying "terrorism" is that a lot of countries haven't agreed upon the definition of terrorism (quotes implied from here on if you want - not implied if you don't). Now I know that you're thinking ?Wait, but there's a book definition of terrorism. The American Government has a definition for terrorism. Webster's (et al.) has a definition of terrorism. There was even an international summit in ?78 in Bonn that defined terrorism. What is he talking about?!"

But a lot of governments aren't in complete agreement with that, especially those governments that consider what the Palestinians are doing as resistance. If you noticed the news around the 3rd or 4th of this month, you may have seen a headline saying something along the lines of "Defining terrorism defeats Islamic summit" (Thanks, BBC for the headline). More than 50 Muslim states sent ministers and delegates to Kuala Lumpur with at least one goal: Define terrorism. It couldn't be done. At the end of the conference, the only thing that was decided was that they needed another conference (this time organized by the UN) to come up with a universally accepted definition for terrorist acts. (When in doubt, add another layer of bureaucracy.)

So when you can't get governments to agree on what terrorism is or if the current intifada is a series of terrorist acts or a resistance ... how can you expect news agencies?

On the other hand, Palestinians routinely arrest and try other Palestinians for collaborating. And yes, sometimes, they save the expense of a court by just using street justice. Collaboration isn't ill-defined. However, without an actual court case, newspapers have to put in the word suspected because it wasn't ever proven that these people were the ones who worked with Israel this time.

Do I think that the quotes are silly? Yes. Do I think that street justice is appropriate? No. But that's just my two cents.

Here and there around the web there are grisly photos of Palestinians brandishing internal organs of a collaborator whom they have torn to pieces. Oops, I mean alleged "internal organs". And why doesn't Reuters put "Palestinians" in quotation marks?