Calling a terrorist a terrorist

Last night, after a suspected Islamist fanatic gunned down two Swedish football fans in Brussels to ‘avenge Muslims’, the BBC ran a headline calling it a ‘terror’ attack. This should seem entirely unremarkable. After all, it was a terror attack, so the language had the benefit of being accurate. The problem, of course, is that the corporation has a policy of refusing to describe the butchers of Hamas in the same terms.