Terrorism misdefined

No country on earth has a stronger interest in maintaining a clear and accurate definition of terrorism than Israel does, given that its citizens are so often the targets and the victims of terrorism, and given how large a sector of world opinion is ready to excuse this fact with apologetics of one stripe or another. If the following report is accurate, therefore, then what it reports is shameful:

Four Arab Israelis shot dead by a soldier opposed to the closure of the Gaza Strip settlements are not victims of "terror" because their killer was Jewish, Israel's defence ministry has ruled, and so their families are not entitled to the usual compensation for life.

The ministry concluded that the law only recognises terrorism as committed by "organisations hostile to Israel" even though the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, described the killings by Private Eden Nathan Zaada, 19, as "a despicable act by a bloodthirsty terrorist."
.....
The defence ministry proposes to pay the families of the Shfaram victims an undisclosed lump sum instead of a lifelong monthly amount.

But Mr Barakeh [an Arab member of the Israeli parliament] says that denies the dead their recognition as victims of terrorism. He noted that Arabs who had committed individual attacks but were not members of armed organisations had still been branded by the Israeli government as terrorists.

See also here and here. This is not just a matter of a word. Or it is, but the word's exact usage, particularly in law, matters. The law in question needs to be amended.