By SETH J. FRANTZMAN

A “blast at Egypt’s main Coptic christian Cathedral kills 25, injures dozens,” was a headline at FoxNews taken from the Associated Press. There were headlines today about a “blast” in Turkey at a stadium that killed almost 30 people. The BBC claimed that a “deadly blast” killed 16 people in Somalia today as well.

There sure are a lot of “blasts” and random “explosions” taking place these days. Just spontaneous combustion perhaps?

Actually they are all human-made mass murder, they are all terrorism, hate-crimes, killing on purpose by people who want to murder, often for reasons of hate and intolerance. To describe each attack as a “blast” is a way to whitewash it, the same way media whitewashes hate criminal murderers and turns them into “militants.” The “blast” narrative is designed to hide from the public the nature of the killing.

It is akin to reporting a lynching by the KKK as “rope kills man.” Yes, technically the rope did kill the person. It was the method of killing. But rope is an inanimate object, it is not responsible for the killing. Do you describe Auschwitz and “1 million found to have died from gas” or “gas kills 1 million.”  No.  The Nazis murdered 1 million at the death camp. Did 9/11 involve “building hit by plane, collapses.” No. 

Don’t turn the murder of people into “bullets strike people.” Bullets don’t just come form a cloud and his peolple.  Churches don’t blow up from “blasts.” Blasts are the way the media tries to turn ever act of terror, murder and hate crime into something banal and benign. When a swastika is scrawled on a door is it reported that “marker causes graffiti”?

Media purposely misleads not because it doesn’t know the origin of the “blasts.” The bombing in Istanbul, Mogadishu and Egypt are not being investigated as an accident, perhaps a gas leak, or a sinkhole.  See, if it was a sinkhole, you could say “sinkhole swallows cars.”  But these are not sinkholes or volcanoes, or large waves. They are not natural disasters.  They are unnatural murders.

Call them what they are. Stop telling us “blasts” killed people.

It is not a gas leak!