Cowardly quotes about Israel

There's a protected species in the media ecosystem that fascinates me. These are what I call cowardly quotation marks: those that cushion a term that the media outlet in question doesn't want to make its own and, therefore, assigns responsibility for the use of those words to a third party. The problem is that, sometimes, it's difficult to distinguish whether the use is due to the reasonable need to indicate that something has been said by someone or if, simply, they want to distance themselves from the mental framework behind that concept. I was thinking, scanning the press this Wednesday, in front of the front-page headline ofAbc: "EU toughens stance on Israel over 'inhumane' situation in Gaza." Or this subtitle from The Vanguard: "A majority of countries are pushing the EU to review the trade agreement with Tel Aviv in the face of the "catastrophe" in Palestine." If I'm feeling optimistic, I think it's simply a matter of recording the words the European institutions use to refer to the Palestinian tragedy. But if I'm feeling pessimistic, I fear that they're simply avoiding acknowledging that an inhuman catastrophe is being perpetrated in the Gaza Strip, so as not to alienate part of their readership. There are headlines, however, that do get their point across: "Europe begins to punish Israel for the slaughter and hunger in Gaza" (The Country) or "The EU will review the agreement with Israel due to the horror of Gaza" (ARA).

And then, of course, there are also those who look completely the other way and make no reference to the humanitarian drama that is taking place. The reason headline on the front page "EU opens the door to reviewing current relationship with Israel" not only minimizes the issue – let's compare it with the "begins to punish" ofThe Country or the "admonition" ofThe Newspaper– but, above all, it avoids talking about the actions that so many voices and organizations consider genocidal. And which are, in fact, what motivated this EU reaction.