Jewish Militant Opens Fire on Bus of Israeli Arabs, Killing 4
New York Times
Israeli teenager kills three after shooting at Arab bus passengers
Independent
Israeli soldier kills four Arabs on bus
Guardian Unlimited
Militant, teenager, or soldier? Who was he?
The gunman was initially thought to be Eden Tzuberi, later identified as Eden Natan Zada. He was an army private reported absent without leave around mid-June after refusing to take part in preparations for the Gaza pullout. He was linked to a banned extremist Jewish group opposed to Mr Sharon’s pullout from the Gaza Strip. Also, he was an Orthodox Jew.
I give the New York Times the most points for accuracy—he was an AWOL soldier, and only barely a teenager. Soldier suggests he was carrying out government orders; teenager suggests he was still in high school. Militant is the best description.
A crowd then surrounded at the gunman and beat him to death, but here’s what the headlines said:
Israeli is lynched after killing four on bus
UK Daily Telegraph
Crowd lynch Israeli who killed 4 Arabs
The Scotsman
Hmmm. Definition of “lynch”:
To execute without due process of law, especially to hang, as by a mob.
(I guess that makes their headlines technically correct, although the use of the word lynch implies that they hanged him. British readers, does “lynch” not have that connotation in your corner of the world?)
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the shootings “a reprehensible act by a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist who sought to attack innocent Israeli citizens.” (The victims were Israeli Arabs, which I assume means those not living in the West Bank.)
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Comments to this entry
Mutantfrog
August 5, 2005
8:25 am
The word 'lynch' always makes me think of hanging, so I personally wouldn't recommend using it in a case like this. But that may be an Americanism. You raise a good question, does the word carry unescapable connotations of hanging in UK English?
Saru
August 5, 2005
2:09 pm
What is the etymology of the word lynch?
This is an eponymous word; that is, it comes from the name of a person. That person was William Lynch, who lived in Virginia in the late 18th century, and who, in 1780, got together with his neighbors to form a vigilante committee to uphold order in their town. They were apparently not known for providing fair trials to those they deemed transgressors, but their victims were not necessarily put to death. By 1811, the term Lynch law was used to describe such unfair tactics, and around 1835 the term was Lynch. By 1839 the upper case L was changed to a lower case one. In the late 19th century the verb form had come to mean "inflict a sentence of death without a lawful trial". Today we more often hear the back formation lynching as the noun.