To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@comcast.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #674, 12/1/13
This Week on the Powerpoint Circuit: “… but Some Dirty Words are More Dirty Than Others”?
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Lee and I gave our twentieth-something Powerpoint presentation this week, this time to an adult education group meeting at the University of Delaware. The point that we make in our talks, based on our book, Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed From A-to-Z, is that mainstream media Israel reporting is laced with Jewish homeland-delegitimizing pejoratives, that we ourselves foolishly use these terms – as Lee puts it, “If you forfeit the language, you forfeit your heritage” – and that the time’s come for us to stop, “period.”
An audience comment this week that’s come up a few times now is that “West Bank,” to which we object, is just a name for the place, that we should focus just on fighting the term “occupation.” We disagree. Pejoratively distorting the name of a place is inherently part of pejoratively distorting the legitimacy of your presence there. Media slamming of “Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank” is of the same ilk as “The U.N. sought to partition Palestine into Palestinian and Jewish states,” and “Jews are settlers across Israel’s 1967 borders in traditionally Arab East Jerusalem.” What Lee and I advocate in our talks and our book is that Job One for us in effectively fighting anti-Israel media bias is jettisoning all of the media’s dirty words we ourselves use.
So, with our Philadelphia Inquirer (“Inq”) cooperatively being quiescent this week, I’ll use the opportunity to make the pitch to you that there is sound historical footing for using the non-pejorative terms, that dumping the pejoratives is not naïve wild-eyed fantasy. (If there is any naïve wild-eyed fantasy regarding Mideast discourse terminology, it’s on the part of Jews who suppose they can convince Mr. Kerry, the European Union et al that “Jewish settlements in the West Bank” are “legitimate.” Compare: It’s Judea & Samaria, not “the West Bank,” and Jews, no less than Arabs, are residents there – and in the heart of Jerusalem – not “Jewish settlers.”)
Palestinian Arabs aren’t “The Palestinians”
Let’s cut to the chase. Palestinian Arabs are not “The Palestinians.” What could be more question-begging than, e.g., characterizing attempted partition of Pennsylvania “between Pennsylvanians and Jews,” the sometimes-planet Pluto “between Plutonians and Jews,” or Palestine “between Palestinians and Jews”?
The U.N. did not seek to do that. What it sought to do in its 1947 Palestine partition resolution was to partition Palestine between its two populations, whom it called “the two Palestinian peoples,” into what it called over and over “the Jewish State” and “the Arab [not “Palestinian”] State.” (And, btw, it said “the hill country of Samaria and Judea,” its name all through the centuries, not “the West Bank,” which Jordan had not yet invented.)
Yet, here’s the mainstream Western media on the U.N. partition:
? “1948” entry in McClatchy timeline, May 8, 2008 (Inq.):
1948: U.N. proposed separate Jewish and Palestinian states; Britain left on May 14…fighting between Jews and Palestinians caused two-thirds of Palestinian population to flee.
? A.P. (2/28/09, Inq.) referenced the UN 1947 partition plan as calling for “…separate Jewish and Palestinian states.” The Inq. headlined: “…separate states for Palestinians and Jews”
? A.P. (3/16/08, Inq.): “…the U.N. partition plan of 1947, which envisioned Jewish and Palestinian states living side by side in peace.”
? The M.S.M. has pressed its divestiture of Jews from equity in the term “Palestinian” to the reductio ad absurdum. Jerusalem has again had a Jewish majority since the late 1800’s. But that didn’t prevent the A.P., in the very course of a rare acknowledgement of Jerusalem’s Jewish majority, from characterizing the population of this Palestine city that has again had a Jewish majority for more than a century as “Jews and Palestinians.”
A.P. (3/10/08, Inq.): “…about two-thirds of Jerusalem’s 700,000 residents are Jews, and the rest are Palestinians.” The Inquirer’s accompanying photo caption: “…Jews and Palestinians share the waiting room at [Jewish] Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem.”
All Dirty Words are Equal, and Jewish Users Need to Jettison All of Them
At the end of section one of our book, its issue-by-issue A-to-Z treatment of anti-Israel media bias, we list the pejorative terms we’ve treated, pleading with Israel’s supporters to stop senselessly using them. Here’s those bearing on Jewish homeland delegitimization:
“1967 Borders” – They aren’t. They were subsequent war-vitiated 1949-67 Israel-Jordan ceasefire lines.
“1948 Creation of Israel,” “1948 Founding of Israel” – No. Israel’s attainment of independence wasn’t artificial and out-of-the-blue.
“The War that Followed Israel’s Creation” – No, it wasn’t. The 1948 war was a partition-rejecting multi-nation Arab invasion for Israel’s destruction.
“Palestinian Refugees From the War that Followed Israel’s Creation” – No, they weren’t. There were multiple reasons why Arabs (not yet called “Palestinians”) left Israel, mainly encouragement by the invading Arab states. And more Jewish refugees, mostly Israel-absorbed, left vast Muslim lands than Arabs left tiny Israel.
“East Jerusalem” – No, it’s not. Except for Jordan’s 1948-1967 seizure, the Old City, City of David, and “eastern” residential areas have been just part of just plain “Jerusalem,” which has again had a Jewish majority since 19th century times.
“East Jerusalem Jewish Settlers” – No, they’re not. Jews have lived in Jerusalem since ancient times, invariably returning whenever foreign conquerors kicked them out. During the three millennia preceding 1967, nobody called Jews in Jerusalem alien “settlers.”
“Israel was Created Because of the Holocaust” – No, it wasn’t. Israel’s independence is the natural culmination of the Jewish people’s continuous organized, openly-Jewish, homeland-claiming presence, recognized in the 20th century by pre-Holocaust international forums and documents.
“Palestinian Refugee Issue” – No, it’s not. In the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war and its aftermath, a greater number of Middle Eastern Jews left vast Muslim lands than Arabs left tiny Israel. Israel’s absorption of the Jewish refugees while “host” countries confined the Arabs to “refugee camps” does not remove the Jewish refugees (who’ve had descendants too) from the Arab-Israeli conflict’s refugee issue.
“‘Jewish State’ Recognition Demand is a New Stumbling Block” – No, it’s not. The land of Israel as the Jewish people’s homeland has been central to Jewish peoplehood since Moses’ time.
“Millions of Palestinian Refugees and Their Descendants” – No, there weren’t. Palestine’s entire population, a third of it Jews, was less than two million. Not all the Arabs lived in the part that became Israel, and not all of them left. Some half-million Arabs left tiny Israel. A greater number of (mostly Israel-absorbed) Jews left vast Muslim lands.
“Nakba” – No, it wasn’t, unless it’s your view that the homeland Jewish army throwing back a multi-nation Arab invasion for its destruction and annihilation of its people was a “catastrophe.”
“Occupied Territories,” “Palestinian Territories” – No, they’re not. The League of Nations Palestine Mandate recognized the Jewish people’s right to reconstitute its Jewish National Home in Palestine (originally including Transjordan), and called for close settlement of the Jews on this land, where Jews had lived, claiming it as their homeland, for three thousand years. They’re disputed, not “occupied” or “Palestinian” territories.
“The Palestinians” – No, they’re not. Palestine is a place, not a people. Palestine’s Arabs are Palestinian Arabs, just as Israeli Jews are Palestinian Jews. The media acknowledges that during the Mandate Christians, Muslims and Jews in the land were all called Palestinians. In fact, until the 1960’s “Palestinian” was used mainly in reference to Palestine’s Jews.
“Seized By Israel in June 1967” – Don’t say that to Jews who remember the anguish Israeli and Diaspora Jews went through in May 1967.
“‘Jewish Settlements’ Versus ‘Palestinian’ Neighborhoods … Towns … Villages” – No, they’re not. Wherever the eventual political border will run, Jews are not outsiders, but actually have far longer connection to the land of Israel, including Judea, Samaria and “East” Jerusalem, than Arabs.
“P.A. Is For and Israel Against the ‘Two-State Solution’” – Wrong on both counts. Israel agrees with the U.S. on “two states for two peoples, Jewish and Arab.” Abbas and other P.A. leaders have said over and over “We shall never recognize a Jewish state.”
“The Cave of the Patriarchs is a ‘West Bank Shrine,’ and Rachel’s Tomb is ‘a Mosque’ “ – No, they’re not.
“The West Bank” – No, it’s not. “Judea and Samaria” are not just “biblical names,” but the names the Israeli hill country of Israel was known by from ancient times, including in the U.N.’s 1947 partition resolution, until after Transjordan invaded in 1948 (and was ousted by Israel in 1967).
“Israel is Xenophobic” – No, it’s not. Israeli Arabs are full Israeli citizens. The xenophobes are the Palestinian Arabs, who would expel every last Jew from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.
“Israel Is a Colonialist Zionist Entity With No Place In The Islamic Middle East” – No, it’s not. The Jewish people, as such, has lived in the land of Israel without interruption for longer than 3,000 years. The Zionist movement is a modern expression of a diaspora connection to the land, including through aliyah, that never ceased. Much of Israel’s population today is descended from Jews expelled in the mid-20th century from Middle East lands in which they had unbroken family roots going back hundreds and even thousands of years.
The Jewish state of Israel is none of the dark, depraved things its enemies and the media paint it. It is a miraculous revival of sovereign dignity of a people which never relinquished its ancient homeland connection to its land. Surrounded by foes dedicated to its total destruction, it has accomplished much that is good for itself and the world….
Regards,
Jerry