Defining deviancy down

Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously coined the phrase “defining deviancy down” to accept more and more violent behavior.

The news media seem to have that concept down perfectly when it comes to Israel. Always, when Israel launches offensives against terrorists—and always, the offensives are launched after terrorists have attacked and murdered Israelis—the media insist that Israel’s actions are “threatening” to “derail” or “unravel” or simply “threatening a fragile” and here we have our choice of “lull,” “cease-fire,” “quiet,” or even “peace negotiations.” It’s like the AP/Reuters/NYTimes version of Mad Libs. And now, in the latest AP version of defining deviancy down, Israel is responsible for threatening “to unravel an Egyptian effort to mediate a cease-fire.”

Have you got that? It’s Israel’s fault that the Egyptian effort is going to fail. There has been no concrete cease-fire. There has been no peace. There are only efforts, and Hamas basically tells Egypt that no, they’re not going to have any kind of cease-fire that doesn’t include the West Bank as well as Gaza, and yet, the AP manages to spin this as Israel’s fault. Because Israel’s response to the murder of three of her soldiers is the threat to the effort to try to maybe get Hamas to think about really, really, really ceasing their terrorism against Israel.

It wasn’t the action of terrorists planting a bomb on the Gaza border that threatened to unravel the effort to mediate the cease-fire. It wasn’t the firing of mortars that threatened to unravel the effort to mediate the cease-fire. It wasn’t yesterday’s and today’s firing of kassam rockets that threatened to unravel the effort to mediate the cease-fire. No. None of these things caused the AP to discuss the unraveling of the effort to mediate the cease-fire.

But Israel’s response to all of these things? Now that’s a reason to threaten to unravel the effort to mediate the cease-fire.

And the AP continues to define deviancy down. Nothing that the terrorists do affects the phantom lulls, cease-fires, truces, and efforts to mediate a cease-fire. Nothing. Anything that Israel does? Well. That’s what violates the truce. Or the calm. Or the lull. Or the effort to mediate a cease-fire.

And they wonder why journalists are among the least-respected professions in the world. Here’s a clue: People can read. Really they can. And they can especially read between the lines.