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Israeli press accounts of the assassination of the Lebanese pro-Palestinian fighter Samir Kuntar – killed, along with several Syrian civilians, when sophisticated missiles that may have been launched by the IDF leveled much of a building near Damascus – were consistently gloating, self-righteous…and hypocritical. I stress the final adjective, because to grasp the hypocrisy is to reveal a deeply rooted double standard in the way the media have narrated Israel’s war against the Palestinians.

The Times of Israel referred to Kuntar as a “terror chief” and cited anonymous “reports” that he was “assassinated…because he was planning fresh attacks against Israel.” The paper also quoted the brother of a man killed in a 1979 Nahariya raid in which Kuntar was wounded and captured – and for which he served almost 30 years in an Israeli prison – urging more of the same: “I hope that this gets the message across that whoever murders Jews in Israel and in the world will end up like Samir Kuntar…in the Middle East, this seems like the only language they understand.” (The paper had no comment on the racism of this statement.)

The Jerusalem Post carried roughly the same story, happily noting that “the strike underscores Israel’s commitment to maintain full operational freedom and disrupt imminent threats to its security.”

Even Israel’s most liberal major newspaper, Ha’aretz, described Kuntar as “responsible for one of the most traumatic terror attacks in Israeli history,” making it appear perfectly logical that, as the newspaper went on to report, “Israeli officials praised the assassination.” Kuntar’s nearly 30 years of imprisonment did get mentioned, but just barely; the bloody 1978 Israeli invasion of Lebanon that spurred Kuntar (then 16 years old) to lead his desperate raid the following spring wasn’t mentioned at all. Ultimately Ha’aretz agreed with its right-wing competitors that Kuntar’s murder was, in the words of another Israeli survivor of Kuntar’s one and only attack, “historic justice.”

The themes here are laid out clearly enough: the elimination of a “terror chief”…an Israeli commitment to “disrupt imminent threats”…praise for the assassination of the leader of a “traumatic terror attack”…”historic justice.” So what’s missing in all this kvelling over the death of a “terrorist”?

Mainly this: not one of these articles acknowledges that Kuntar’s killing was, in itself, an act of terrorism – nor that his assassination, if anything, damaged Israeli security rather than enhancing it.

Let’s exercise some rudimentary logic. Suppose it’s legitimate for Israel to blow up Kuntar in a Damascus suburb – along with several civilian bystanders – simply because Kuntar once killed a few Israelis and was allegedly planning “fresh attacks.” It surely follows that Hezbollah would be justified in launching missiles at Jerusalem in an effort to kill, say, General Ehud Barak or Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon – each of whom has a much bloodier record than Kuntar, and either of whom could be plausibly accused of planning “fresh attacks” against Lebanon or Syria. Yet I’m confident that Israel would denounce any such attack on Jerusalem as terrorism. Why, then, do press accounts fail to note that Israel’s attack constituted terrorism?

The emphasis on “security” in the quoted passages is also anomalous. Press accounts were quick to mention the possibility of retaliatory strikes from Hezbollah; indeed, it would be difficult to imagine Hezbollah not retaliating after such a blatant act of terror. But in that case, how does the assassination enhance Israel’s security? If it’s really true that Kuntar was planning some sort of attack on Israel, wouldn’t it have made more sense to foil the attack instead of killing off one Hezbollah officer – well known, but ultimately replaceable – after the plans were already laid?

These questions should be obvious; they seem otherwise only because the media studiously avoid raising them. The real problem is the taboo on describing Israel, or its actions, in the same terms the press regularly applies to other states that behave in similar fashion. When Russian troops enter Crimea, mainstream media scream “empire” and “permanent war”; Israel’s routine violations of the Lebanese border are barely mentioned. When Israeli police execute a 16-year-old Palestinian girl wielding a pair of scissors, the girl is described in the popular press as an “attacker” – as if Israel’s forces hadn’t invaded her country before riddling her with bullets.

Jewish liberals outside Israel – the sort usually described as members of the “peace” camp – fall into the same trap. Note, for instance, a priceless moment at the recent, glitzy gathering of self-styled Jewish progressives in New York when Israeli legislator Merav Michaeli (described in the Jewish Week as a member of “the center-left Zionist Union party”) demanded of a Fatah official that to “bridge this thing and find a solution…you have to recognize the right of the Jewish people for the state of Israel in the land of Israel.”

Really? Suppose Michaeli had been speaking to a black civil rights worker in the 1960s, and had demanded – publicly – that he acknowledge the right of the “white people” to their “state of Georgia” or their “state of Alabama”? Would an audience of liberal Jews have applauded her?

Returning to Kuntar: amid the media lovefest over his assassination, it was easy to forget that at least 20 years ago, Kuntar had publicly concluded that attacks on Israeli civilians were “a terrible mistake,” that the Palestinian liberation movement should “recognize[] Jewish suffering,” and that “you have to accept Israel as a fact in order to move on and not return to the cycle of losses…. What you had then [in the 1970s] was a long, vicious cycle, which cost many victims on both sides. It needs to stop.”

A society that claims to seek peace should have sought out Kuntar as a partner in negotiations. Instead, Israel celebrates his assassination and openly weighs yet another bloody invasion of his country. Such grotesque ironies should be obvious, at least to every liberal – if liberals, and Jews generally, weren’t so accustomed to the double standard by which Israel gets to play every game by a unique set of rules.