#814 8/7/16 Toameh on “Palestinian Lexicon” and “Israel’s Creation”

 

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  Khaled Abu Toameh had an insightful article on GatestoneInstiture.org this week, on Palestinian Arabs’ inflammatory lexicon for referring to Israel.  Unfortunately, he himself used terms, frequently used by the mainstream media, delegitimizing the Jewish homeland of Israel. We can’t expect the media, not to say Palestinian Arabs, to change their terms of reference for Israel, but we can stop using such pejoratives ourselves and encourage individuals and institutions empathetic toward Israel to do so.

This Week: Khaled Abu Toameh on the “Palestinian Lexicon” and “Israel’s Creation”

The mainstream Western media is hardly any more likely to drop the pejorative terminology of its reporting on Israel than, say, the Philadelphia Inquirer, which editorialized this morning that “a viable [i.e., different] Republican nominee would be better for not only the party but the country,” is likely to endorse Donald Trump.

What we supporters of Israel can accomplish, which this media watch strives to advance, is that by cleaning up our own vocabularies we can draw for Western publics a vivid contrast between the meanings and consequences of the words which we, and the media and the Jewish homeland’s enemies, respectively, use.

Is this important?  Khaled Abu Toameh’s Gatestone article Monday, “A Guide to the Palestinian Lexicon,” quoted Orwell in 1984:

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

Abu Toameh himself cites what he calls the “Palestinian lexicon” as evidence that Orwell was more than right, that pejorative language, in the Arab-Israeli context, incites hateful action as well as thought:   “The anti-Israel sentiments, delivered for decades by Palestinians, not only corrupt thought, but also incite people against Israel, by creating incendiary situations that are designed to burst into flames.”

And the reception accorded the Israeli Olympic team in Rio this week (it got roundly booed while the Palestinian Arab team got roundly cheered – Times of Israel this morning, quoting Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea at opening ceremonies) is one more indicator that anti-Israel pejorative language in international news reporting on Israel indeed breeds contempt for the Jewish homeland all over the world.

Nor are the Palestinian Arabs likely to change their lexicon (or vote for Donald Trump), but Abu Toahmeh used an expression of his own in Monday’s Gatestone article which I find counter-productive.

Consider this paragraph early in Abu Toahmeh’s article:

“Many Palestinians still have not come to terms with Israel’s right to exist.  For them, this is not only about the “occupation” of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.  The real “occupation,” for them, began with the creation of Israel in 1948.”

Of course, I cringe at his use of “West Bank” and capital-E “East Jerusalem,” but the most damage is done, I think, by his “the creation of Israel in 1948.”

In these weekly emails, I regularly rail against “captured [the LA Times, for one, lovingly sneers “seized”] by Israel in 1967” as truncating from Jewish connection to Judea-Samaria and historic Jerusalem three millennia of such connection that preceded CE 1967.  But, in two respects, “the creation of Israel in 1948” cuts even deeper.

“Creation,” sometimes flaunted as “founding,” of Israel “in 1948” intentionally purveys an utter absence of Jewish connection, at least in post-biblical time, to the entirety of the homeland preceding that year, and, secondly, it purveys a sense of artificiality to that “creation.”  The Israelis themselves understood the significance of 1948, at least in 1948, by accurately calling the 1948 war their “War of Independence,” i.e., of a homeland people throwing off almost two millennia of successive foreign empires’ rule, not their “War of Creation & Founding.”

Akin to all this is a term, cited by Abu Toahmeh as at least in the recent past used of Israel by Palestinian Arabs, “the Zionist Entity.”  It dates at least modern Jewish connection to the land of Israel to late nineteenth and early twentieth century times.

Some weeks ago, I suggested that those of you inclined to do so contact pro-Israel journalists and political and organizational leaders who themselves use pejorative terms beloved by the media and Israel’s enemies and beseech (well, politely ask) them to stop.

Monday’s Gatestone article by Abu Toahmeh, I think, qualifies as such.  If you’re inclined to do so, visit www.gatestoneinstitute.org, and suggest that “West Bank,” “East” Jerusalem, and above all “the creation of Israel in 1948” don’t belong in articles by sources empathetic to Israel.  I sent Mr. Abu Toahmeh an email there.  If I hear back from him, I’ll let you know.