#869 8/27/17 – This Week: A Jewish Journalist Using the Right Terms

This Week: A Jewish Journalist Using the Right Terms

What has always seemed to me self-defeating and self-disrespecting is advocates for Israel ourselves using terms designed to delegitimize the Jewish homeland of Israel.  Upper-case-e “East” Jerusalem instead of, e.g., “eastern” Jerusalem; “West Bank” instead of Judea-Samaria; “1967 borders” instead of 1949 ceasefire lines; and “the Palestinians” (as though Israeli Jews aren’t Palestinian, i.e., legally resident in Palestine) instead of “Palestinian Arabs” come to mind.

This week, though, independent journalist Arlene Kushner, writing “From Israel: Getting to Better” (8/25/17), used the right terms.  Look with me through some of her word choices.  You may find it refreshing, and perhaps take heart in using the correct terms yourself.  (Emphasis added throughout)

***  Referring to Palestinian Arab claims to historic Jerusalem for their claimed state’s capital, Kushner calls it “eastern Jerusalem,” not “East Jerusalem.”  (paragraph 7)

***  Referring in that same sentence to Palestinian Arab demands for Israel’s withdrawal, Kushner calls the 1949 Israel-Jordan military ceasefire line “the 1949 armistice line,” not “the 1967 border.”

***  The term “West Bank” does not appear in Kushner’s 43-paragraph article.  “Judea and Samaria” appears in paragraphs 35, 39 (twice) and 41.  The discussion here is on a new Israeli law and court case dealing with subsequent establishment by Arabs of claim to real estate in Judea-Samaria on which Israelis had built in good faith.  Court rulings had been that the Israelis’ buildings had to be demolished.  But the new law and government position is that compensation should be paid under eminent domain instead, in conformity with how such cases are resolved in the West.  Kushner concludes: “Israel’s position vis-à-vis Area C of Judea and Samaria has now shifted.”

***  Kushner does not call Israel an “occupier” in Judea-Samaria.  In paragraph 39 she writes that after the 1967 war Israel “voluntarily [emphasis original] assumed responsibility for humanitarian provisions of the Hague and Geneva Conventions … as if  [emphasis original] it was a belligerent occupier in Judea and Samaria, for humanitrarian purposes.”

***  Kushner did not use the word “settlements” on her own.  She did use it in quotes in referencing a question posed to visiting Jared Kushner by an Abbas aide (par. 10), and with a capital ‘S’ in referencing the name of the new Israeli law (par. 35).  The terms she does use are “Jewish houses” and “Jewish building” (par. 35) and again “Jewish houses” (par. 39).

***  How Kushner refers to the Jews and Arabs of Palestine, while not totally consistent, is encouraging.  In paragraph 15, she refers to the two parties to the peace negotiations as “Israel and the PA,” not Israel and “the Palestinians,” which is good.  In pargraph 19, she says “the Palestinian Arabs [not “the Palestinians”] want their own Balfour Declaration, so to speak.”  In paragraph 24, she directly quotes a PA official referring to “the Palestinians.”  In paragraph 37, dealing with the new law replacing demolition of Jewish houses on subsequently claimed Arab land with compensation of the Arabs through eminent domain, she writes: “The State says this is `the only fair solution for Jews and Palestinian Arabs alike ….”  All this is good, but then she ends paragraph 39 by stating what the law had been in these terms: “… thus the Court consistently ruled that Jewish houses on Palestinian property had to be demolished.”

***  Finally, she’s not afraid of the place-name “Palestine.”  Paragraph 20: “In November we will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, in which the British government for the first time recognized Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people.”

Given that even so many Jews habitually use Jew-demeaning terms like “East Jerusalem … 1967 borders … West Bank… occupation … settlements … The Palestinians, etc.” it seems almost heresy to say “Judea-Samaria, 1949 armistice lines, Palestinian Arabs, etc.”  It’s almost like questioning the sacredness of The Two-State Solution.  From standpoints of self-respect and making the Jewish homeland case, our task is to commit these heresies until they’re no longer heresies.