Editorial word choice quietly overrides the legal right to resist occupation

Evidence

On April 1, 1996, the Times reported that Israel had shelled South Lebanon and killed two civilians. “The militant Party of God threatened to retaliate,” the anonymous report stated, and continued, “tension has run high on both sides of the border since the guerrillas killed six Israeli soldiers over the past month in the southern Lebanon border strip occupied by Israel.” Normally of course guerrillas are entitled to fight against the soldiers of an occupying army, though here the principle is initially vitiated by references to a “militant” Islamic party, which calls up associations with fundamentalism, the threat of Islam, and so forth, in the reader’s mind. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 59

Categorization

• DEFINE: Said illustrates how labeling (‘militant’, ‘terrorist’) converts a lawful act into an unlawful one in reader perception.