Somehow I suspect that the good people at the Los Angeles Times would be less sympathetic to stabbing as a protest tactic if it were undertaken by their own protesting union members. But the media started out by calling terrorists militants. Increasingly you see terrorists being described as activists. Next stop will be calling them community organizers.
Meanwhile the LA Times is calling a stabber, a protester, as Yisrael Medad notes.
This reminds me of the time that Oswald protested Kennedy. And who can forget the Nazi protests of WW2 or the Japanese protest at Pearl Harbor.
In Chicago, they sometimes protest a dozen people to death in one weekend. The animal kingdom is full of protests. Lions protest gazelles. Tigers protest against people. And sometimes people protest back against the tigers.
On 9/11 Muslims vigorously protested America and Americans launched a counterprotest in Afghanistan.
War really is over if you want it. Just call it a protest.