Good for the leadership in Israel. They called for what it is. It is funny though (weird, not queer or ha-ha funny) that the leadership claims that Israel is an enlightened country. Wonder if US leaders would be bold enough to claim the same.

Seems like the media only calls it terrorism if your killing people to take down a government.

Perhaps. Or more often it is described as a “terrorist act” when the act is perpetrated by an organized political group or on behalf of (or with the sanctioning of) a political group rather than an individual acting independently. (For example, suicide bombers are usually described as a suicide bombing excepting when implemented with factual data linking the individual to a group.)

As far as we know, this was an act perpetrated by an individual, as was the case in the Holocaust Museum shooting, the Tennessee church shootings and similar.

In any event, I think it can be agreed that all of these actions are “acts of terrorism”.

My point, if I have one, is I suppose that I don’t think I would read too much into the Israeli police statement as being purposely intended to underplay the seriousness of this attack on the gay community in the eyes of the pols, Israeli government/police, or its national citizenry.

Okay, I get the police’s trying to distinguish this act from a terrorist act by Hamas or Hezbollah or another Palestinian/Muslim radical group. But come on. Are Arabs and Muslims the only ones we’re allowed to call terrorists? Is saying that it’s “not terrorism” supposed to reassure Israeli citizens that this was a targeted attack on gays and not Jews?

No. I don’t think it was distinguished in this way to “reassure” any one. Although, it might have been an attempt by the Israeli police spokesperson who made to the statement to try to diffuse a potential situation in which blame is automatically placed upon a non-Jew. Especially in a country where “nationalist terroism” acts are a regular occurence. I think it is also worth keeping in mind that even in the US where non-nationalist terror is not a regular occurence, shootings such as that on the Holocaust Museum, the church in Nashville, TN, and other similar acts are seldom referred to as “acts of terrorism” rather than sniper attacks or “mass shootings”.

While I take your point that such acts may be intended to instill terror in a given group, (and that is a valid point regarding all hate crimes) most often, as in the examples cited above, and in the case of racial hate crimes against African Americans (for example), those are seldom referred to as “terrorist acts” instead being referred to as a hate crime.