On the same day Palestinians protest in support of Hezbollah and Syria, the terrorist group Hamas has indicated it will participate in the scheduled upcoming Parliamentary elections. To the north in Lebanon, there is serious debate within Hezbollah about entering the Lebanese political process in light of Syria's promised withdrawal. Syria has agreed to withdraw under the conditions set forth in UNSC Resolution 1559, which has already begun. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has indicated it is time to "recognize Hezbollah" after easily being duped by "the message on the placards they are using".

This acceptance of blatantly terrorist groups as legitimate freedom movements is a cancerous tumor on the United Nations and the media. Over three years after 9-11, the United Nations, despite their attempts to project strength in fighting terrorism, still cannot properly define the word "terrorist", waffling over the issue of whether the murder of innocent civilians are terrorist acts. The media routinely obscures the lines between terrorism and legitimate resistance, as the recent article by Daniel Okrent of The New York Times demonstrates.

The very real threat from Hezbollah and the utterly depraved nature of Hamas should make them clear and easy targets for being labeled as terrorists. However the media quite often resists doing so. CBS News Senior Foreign Correspondent Tom Fenton in a newly published book "Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, The Business of News, and The Danger to Us All" outlines the laziness of the media in reporting on issues of terrorism, and states this is not likely to change (hat tip Jihad Watch):

Fenton and his colleagues had been tracking stories about Al-Qaeda and its allied networks for more than a decade, but they rarely reported what they knew on network news –"because much of the time, our bosses didn't consider such developments newsworthy." Fenton notes that in the three months leading up to 9/11 Al-Qaeda was never mentioned in any of the three evening news broadcasts. Fenton himself had fought in vain to interest CBS in an interview with Bin Laden.

When it comes to media failures, Fenton contends the real questions are "the ones that go to the heart of the system" and "never get asked." He asks, "Do media organs give us enough of the truth (otherwise known as news) or do they consistently miss large, crucial chunks of it? Do they even know what real news is?"

As my research of the reporting of Edward Wong of The New York Times clearly shows, there is more than laziness, a lack of journalistic skills or ignorance of the importance of the data at hand when it comes to issues of reporting on terrorism. Mr. Wong repeatedly goes out of his way not to use the word 'terrorist' when describing attacks on civilians by al Qaeda. His dodge of the word terrorist takes concerted effort.

This clouding of terms and pampering of terrorist groups allows the enemies of civilization to hide under a cloak of legitimacy. Hamas is likely to win a sizable percentage of seats in the Palestinian Authority's Parliament. How does the international community and the media, which is so enamored with the cause of the Palestinians, expect a reasonable peace agreement to be hammered out between Israel and the Palestinians when a party to government is avowed to the destruction of Israel? How can Hezbollah, the terrorist arm of Iran, be routed out if they are granted the status of a legitimate political party? Hezbollah and Hamas have popular support because they provide services that the corrupt governments of Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority cannot provide. Yet these groups hide behind their community service, and even divert funds from community projects to finance terror. With viable governments in place the utility of Hamas and Hezbollah would be marginalized.

The decision to sidestep the obvious to satisfy the need to avoid confrontation does not bring peace, but only delays the eventual conflict as the predators of Hamas and Hezbollah exploit the inherent weakness of the internationals and the media.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)