Language is an important influence on political views, official policy and outcomes. It is the first to signify attitudes and reveal the consciousness of a nation. It can arouse a sense of grievance and target victims. Language leads to action, to official policy.
At its worst, it can legitimize crimes against humanity. It can dehumanize minorities and then then turn them into real victims of genocide. It conceals mass murder under a cloud of euphemism. This process is true for all genocides.
Victor Klemperer, documented the language of the Nazi Holocaust in his book, Lingua Tertii Imperii, which an Israeli blogger has updated for the Hebrew language.
Specifically, in the case of the Gaza war–statements, and the language in which they are articulated in media coverage, comments by government officials, and Jewish leaders– legitimize Israeli genocide. At times they do so unintentionally, at times explicitly. But taken together, such language enables genocide and offers support to Israel as it perpetrates it.
When a US president and his spokesman deny Palestinian deaths by claiming the Gaza health ministry reporting them is an arm of Hamas, this too is the language of denial. In fact, the ministry released the names of all of the dead in a document 206 pages long. But you never heard a single word about that.
Speaking of which, this is the latest linguistic litany of catastrophe: nearly 9,000 Gazans have been murdered by Israel. 70% are women and children. Over 3,000 specifically children. Over half of the housing stock has been completely destroyed. 1.4-million Gazans are refugees in their own country. Nearly half of the hospitals no longer function. Israel knocked out all communication in Gaza until the US forced it restore access. Food, water and electricity have been denied since the war began, three weeks ago.
In those three weeks, less than 100 trucks containing humanitarian aid have been permitted entry by Israel. On a single day, 500 trucks would normally enter the enclave. There are hundreds of trucks linked up at the Rafah crossing, denied entry to Gaza. And yet, the American president, on his return from a trip to Israel, boasts: “I got it done.” 20 trucks entered the day he claimed to have “gotten it done.”
Amalek and the language of genocide
For decades, Israelis have exploited a passage from the Bible in which God commands the Israelite king, Saul, to attack the Amalekites and then exterminate every man, woman, child and even livestock. When Saul spares the king, God banishes him and he later dies in battle.
The “Amalek” myth normalizes genocide. It offers a sacred source to validate it. I reported here that the security cabinet direct the Shin Bet and IDF To assassinate Hamas’ leaders and their families. They entitled it the “Amalek Directive. In.the past, Israeli Orthodox rabbis have justified rape and other war crimes.
Israeli and American Jewish leaders, for example, have used the statement that the Hamas attack, which killed 1,400 Israelis “is the most lethal assault against Jews since the Holocaust.” The IDF spokesflack said: “by far the worst day in Israeli history.” Neither of these is accurate. During the 1948 War, Israel lost far more lives of civilians and soldiers. In the 1973 War, Israel lost 3,000 soldiers.
But there is an even more important distinction that must be made. The world has seen genocides that pale in the comparison to Israel’s suffering. 4-million Cambodians died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. 1-million died in the Armenian genocide. 800,000 Tutsi died in Rwanda. 500,000 Rohingya died or were expelled at the hands of Burmese in Myanmar, 300,000 died in Bosnia. And 9,000 Gazans have been murdered (3,000 children), with many more thousands to come. These are all victims viciously attacked by powerful enemies, not unlike Israel.
Spare us all the performative outrage. In truth, they are exploiting the dead to justify genocide. In fact, the brother of one victim, Hayim Katsman, someone I knew personally, said that his death must not be used by Israel in such a way.
When the apologists I mentioned above have an ounce of pity and outrage for all these millions of lives lost in real holocausts, then they can demand sympathy. Till then neither they nor Israel deserve any.
I would prefer not a single Israeli had died. But not at the expense of the Palestinian dead.
Who is a “terrorist?”
Another term exploited for similar effect is “terrorism.” Hamas are almost always terrorists. The word is never used to portray Israel or its slaughter in Gaza. Why not? What are the mass expulsions of West Bank Palestinians by armed settlers threatening their murder; a series of acts of desecration of Al Aqsa by Border Police firing tear gas and stun grenades; the multiple attacks by settler Judeo-terrorists and IDF soldiers against villages like Huwara; the repeated invasions of Gaza in which nearly 20,000 Palestinians have been murdered in less than a decade–if not terrorism? The refusal to describe official Israeli acts of terror again is an erasure of moral responsibility.
Is Hamas “terrorist?” No. I would claim it isn’t. And certainly not if one refuses to name Israel in the same terms. Hamas is defending its Palestinian homeland. Israelis are occupiers and invaders. A UN General Assembly explicitly declared that armed resistance against such a foreign occupier is legitimate.
What about the claim that killing civilians is never justified? If both sides of a conflict attempt to avoid such attacks, then this position is justified. But when one side wantonly massacres civilians, it is hypocritical to deny the other side, the victims, the right to respond in kind. Israel has invaded Gaza three times since Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Each time it has murdered far more Palestinian civilians than military fighters. It kills indiscriminately. It kills civilians with impunity, without distinction.
I cannot in good conscience only blame Hamas in such circumstances. In fact, I believe that armed resistance, including invading Israel, is justified. I wish this was not so. I wish I could say that both sides respect international law and avoid such attacks. But they don’t. And Israel’s violations are far more egregious, far more lethal, than anything Hamas has done.
Genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic-cleansing
The only people willing to use such terms are Palestinian solidarity groups and the millions of protestors around the globe who are demonstrating weekly against these horrible crimes. You will never hear the terms used in the media. And if they are used, it is never referred to as a fact, but as an opinion voiced by the victims and their supporters. You will not hear in most of the media from academics or human rights campaigners echoing such views. The outlets which publish my work–Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Jacobin Magazine–are among the few exceptions.
Similarly, you see hardly any media coverage (this is the first report in the Hebrew press) of reports like those produced by a right-wing Israeli think tank and a government ministry calling for the mass expulsion of all Gaza residents to the Sinai desert. No one except the few left wing outlets are calling it for what it is: a second Nakba, ethnic cleansing.
Israelis use the term “transfer,” as if Palestinians can merely transfer themselves neatly from one place to another. It is such clean language, concealing the crime of forcing an indigenous people to abandon their homes for generation and become refugees in countries that do not want them: where they are alien and can never feel at home. Such euphemistic language also conceals a racist premise: that all Palestinians are merely “Arabs,” who can be shuffled off to other Arab countries simply because they are both the same ethnicity. It is a deliberate erasure of Palestinian identity.
The term “Arab” used by Israeli Jews–and even by a “polite” liberal publication like Haaretz–to describe Israeli Palestinians, erases their identity. If they are “Arab” then they cannot be Israeli. Rather, they are part of a greater Arab world and can be dumped upon it, where they are all Arabs.
How long does it take for international bodies to recognize genocide for what it is? Apparently, three weeks in the case of International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan. It took him that long to even visit the region. The closest he got to Gaza was visiting the Rafah border crossing in Egypt. Of course, the Israelis would not permit him to enter Gaza itself. And he would not force their hand by telling them he would go regardless.
Khan is sitting on the ICC investigation of Israeli war crimes in the 2014 Gaza invasion mentioned above. Though it determined it had jurisdiction in the case and has begun gathering evidence, it has refused to open a formal investigation, much less make a determination or prosecution. Khan’s recent media statements walk a fine line. He talks about possible violations of international law. He warned “leaders,” rather than Israeli leaders of the consequences of targeting civilians. His statements were couched in generalities, rather than specifics. Nor did he say anything definitive about the actual ICC investigation. He didn’t mention it at all.
The caution of major international institutions like the ICC only emboldens Israel. It permits those who perpetrate genocide to believe they will never be held accountable. Because so far, they haven’t.
“It became evident to U.S. officials that Israeli leaders believed mass civilian casualties were an acceptable price in the military campaign. In private conversations with American counterparts, Israeli officials referred to how the United States and other allied powers resorted to devastating bombings in Germany and Japan during World War II — including the dropping of the two atomic warheads in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — to try to defeat those countries.“
That quote from today’s NYTIMES.
Can you believe how they are justifying this?
I was reading the comments section of a Haaretz article about the war, and a few posters still seem to be asserting that “mass rapes” took place on October 7th. Has there been any verification of this, or is it Bibi lying again ?
@Moshe: It is a lie. No credible media outlets are reporting this claim. Though a few did initally based on false Israeli reports.
OK, but Haaretz are saying the beheadings happened aswell. Is Haarertz a credible source ?
[comment deleted: I don’t permit terror porn here. If you want promote discussion of that or promotional propaganda about it, go elsewhere.
You may publish only ONE comment per thread. Not three as you did here. Publish more than one or respond to this one, it will be your last.]
[comment deleted: you are banned for terror porn]
Clearly, it was not a lie.
And you say that you believe victims.
@ Shay: Your comment has nothing to do with the post. Make sure your comment directly relates to the subject of the post. And make sure what you’re responding to in the post is clear in the body of your comment.
[comment deleted: your claim is a lie. I do not permit lies to be published here.]
The saddest event since the establishment of Israel, yet so many have warned the country was heading to a new catastrophe.
The response of the global community should be one of compassion for the Palestinian people, a nation without a state. This effectively delegitimizes Israel’s establishment as the full intent of two state living in peace was never realized. Nakba was a crime against humanity in a turbulent periode of the Middle East. Zionism has out of desperation of Bibi Netanyahu, formed a cabinet with a terrorist group named after Kahane. Relentless provocation and crimes against the rights of Palestinian was the result.
In time of great need, it are Jewish voices that call for the end of genocide. The so-called Abraham Accords of economic wealth sealed the fate of Palestine and unwittingly too the future of the Jewish state. The victim has indeed become the perpetrator and the Western world, especially the Europe Union, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, had been a total failure in support for a Free Palestine.
Unfortunately on this event, one of your best writings Richard …. grieving 😢 and much appreciated.
I have come to the conclusion, the ICC in my hometown of The Hague, city of Carnegie and Peace ☮️ ,has been taken hostage as a political tool by the U.S., UK and the Dutch under Mark Rutte. To further his personal ambition to become the next SG of NATO by his decisions, he sold out the Dutch and the Palestinian people. Rutte was fond of president Trump and Boris Johnson … figures.
Herzl was a man of his time.
Zionism and German Colonial Fantasies
The fallacy of colonizing Palestinian land should never have become doctrine of the Jewish State. Colonizers throughout history of mankind brought with them Genocide of the indigenous peoples. See the life of Raphael Lemkin:
According to Lemkin, colonization was in itself “intrinsically genocidal” He saw this genocide as a two-stage process, the first being the destruction of the indigenous population’s way of life. In the second stage, the newcomers impose their way of life on the indigenous group.
Gilda Erdan’s stunt at the UNSC selling out the Holocaust … how deep can an Israeli stoop? Wearing the symbol of German atrocities during WWII, the Star of David. In my personal memory he may as well be wearing the Deutsche SS Helmet.
Richard said:
” Israelis are occupiers and invaders”.
Really? What date in history did my family and I become occupiers and invaders (and subject to extreme, self-determination violence)?
May, 1948?
June, 1967?
November, 1917?
BTW, my family began to arrive here in 1812 as messianic Jews.
Under Ottoman Rule how were Christians, Jews and Sunny Arabs living together in Palestine, the Damascus Eyalet (directorate)? Would be interested in your ancestor’s history from 1812 forward.
Spanish decree of the Inquisition of 1492, Jewish refugees were welcomed in Constantinople.
The Jewish-Ottoman Land Company: Herzl’s Blueprint for the Colonization of Palestine (1901)
@Oui
According to the Harvard Professor of History, Derek Penslar, Herzl may have either been thinking about Palestine, or he may have been thinking about Zionist settlements in South America.
Whichever he was thinking about, Herzl hadn’t stepped foot in Palestine when he made the private diary entry in 1895.
See, Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective, Taylor & Francis, 2007, p. 56.
Either way, Oui, who the heck added ‘Palestinians’ into Herzl’s quote?
(That’s not what a real historian does).
Here is the actual quote, which has everything to do with creating Jewish settlements, and nothing to do with ethnic cleansing.
“When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discretely and circumspectly … It goes without saying that we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honor, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion. This is another area in which we shall set the entire world a wonderful example … Should there be many such immovable owners in individual areas [who would not sell their property to us], we shall simply leave them there and develop our commerce in the direction of other areas which belong to us.”– The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, vol. 1 (New York: Herzl Press and Thomas Yoseloff, 1960), pp. 88,
Thank you for the more complete quote.History is so distorted and cherry-picked for bias. We need evenhandedness. I started to read these original Zionists a few years ago, and others including Chaim Weizmann. This makes me want to go back to this. My impression was that the colonizers wanted to live in peace and cooperation with the native Arabs; at least some of them did. Over the years those traumatized from the Holocaust, not all by any means, along with others who were not so inclined to live together, but to claim the land by right, clashed with the native population that also had a legitimate claim. And this grew into today’s entrenched ugliness. Peaceful people are for the most part silent. The warriors and the traumatized that could not evolve on both sides took over. That is too simplistic but I’ll leave it at that.
@ Yellow:
Quotations are bracketed by quotation marks. There are no quotation marks around that passage in Oui’s comment.
It actually has a great deal to do with genocide. So does it matter whether it was ethnic cleansing or washing laundry? Not really. Nor does it matter whether he was talking about Siam or Outer Mongolia. Whether Herzl contemplated what today we would call genocide in Latin America or Palestine, it was still the founder of Zionism saying that for it to succeed it would need to implement a policy of genocide.
When you and your family they up arms to deny Palestinians the freedom of movement in the land in which you and your family arrived as their guests.
Meine Cousine, American but heart in Israel, as so many Jews have theirs, highly invested in Israel, is in a place mentally now where there no case to be made for the Palestinians. To see beyond the horror of October 7th is not possible. The gruesome details get repeated, explicitly, itemized. Israel TV is on. I imagine there they have constant repetition on TV, updated info, of this massacre keeping the shock and outrage focused.
It has to work or aim to to prevent seeing and feeling or caring about what is happening in Gaza, except that “our boys” and hostages are there. Only Israelis pain matters. This is what I am getting from relatives.
Yes it’s a period of national mourning. But you cannot offer that there is a context and history; that would take away from the certainty of the mood. You cannot point out that this is a cycle and also a trap; the response has repercussions already. Blinders on, just like the enemy: what Israel must do to retaliate,for vengeance in the name of “deterrence”.. “they are ISIS”. “It’s just like our 9/11, even like Pearl Harbor” “not since the Holocaust”…. drop bombs now,maybe atomic or nuclear?a deterrence “once and for all”.
That this works perversely does not register.It’s blind rage now, the blindness of retaliation, vengeance. And Bibi must save himself. I hear he is at 18% approval. So he must work harder, the only method he knows.
Does it matter that we say that?
The corollary, Palestinians,with Hamas taking advantage of the creeping situation with extraordinary violence, are not entitled to their rage. Not THIS I am told: it should be more civil. “They should have killed a few soldiers.” That would have been more reasonable.
You cannot say this did not come out of the blue; you will be accused of justifying it. But Israel can justify especially because we help. Israel is justified.
Biden maybe is realizing that this reflects on us and will have consequences for our national security and for the 2024 election.
Hamas has succeeded beyond it’s goals, maybe it’s wildest dreams ( like Osama Bin Laden did) taking us into the great unknown, awakening the world. Hamas must have known that it was going to be a suicide-murder mission, seemingly with little unified planning after a certain point of planning, how this might get out of hand.
We should let them talk. The BBC did. I’d like to know where else.
[comment deleted: you are NOT going to publish anti-Semitism here. Try it again and you’ll be gone.]
Richard, explain how attacking, murdering, and kipnapping children is “defending its Palestinian homeland” or “armed resistance against a foreign occupier.” You can call out Israeli violence in the strongest terms without resorting to characterizing Hamas’s latest attack as somehow resisting occupation. Nothing they did resisted anything or defended any Palestinian position. It was just a murdering spree. The existence of other murders doesn’t change what this one was.
Hamas “changed the equation” forcing Israel to reoccupy Gaza, own Gaza, and make Israel 100% responsible for Gaza, which will lead to One State.
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2023/10/10/The-goal-is-to-radically-change-the-equation-in-Gaza-Israeli-government
“What could change the equation was a great act, and without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” Mr. al-Hayya said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/world/middleeast/hamas-israel-gaza-war.html
If I may David, It’s the horror that penetrates, raises the temperature. Israelis have become immune to plain deaths, theirs much fewer in number, maybe leadership feels okay it’s the price to pay. Israel would just mow down any eruption. Hamas reacted to perhaps, as Steve below says, change the equation. That’s speculation. The facts are the continuing blockade for 16 years, no hope, no peace process, encroachments on the Temple mount, right wing government in Israel aiming to take all the West Bank, more violence, Israel’s economic and military relations with Arab countries with little of nothing for Palestinians ( maybe promises). The goal I heard was much more transactional as well: release of prisoners Israel holds. Hamas, or some, must have been surprised at how out of hand it got. But the terrorists seemed prepared no holds barred. Were they on drugs? Suiciders for sure. It would be good to hear what leaders have to say now. But Israel seems hell bent on killing them all…if possible. It find it hard to disassociate this from what precipitated it but people are making the case that you are, that his is separate and pure evil. I don’t think this is out of the blue. The causes were there for a long time and getting worse.
Pottery Barn rule … Israel now OWNS Gaza … 2.3 million new voters in Palestine-Israel.
“Petraeus said if Israel is to completely destroy the Hamas movement and the Islamic Jihad movement, then it should start occupying Gaza City in the north and gradually take over all the strip. ”
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/490904/The-General-s-Delusional-Plan
@ David:
I don’t explain anything to anyone who demands that I do so. This isn’t a high school debate. You don’t get to give me gotcha questions had hope you can ambush me.
When you explain how attacking murdering, kidnapping and jailing children is defending against an existential threat to Israel’s existence.
No. You can. I can’t. I do not have to defend Israel. There is no moral equivalence between genocide and anything else. Genocide is what it is. Everything else is not, no matter how bad it may be.
And you understand what Hamas’ mission goal and strategy was? Because you have their plans? Because you heard them say it on your speakerphone? Not to mention, why would you assume you have a right to to interpret a Palestinian decision and whether it was right, wrong or indifferent? Did any Palestinian ask for your opinion?
One comment per thread. You’re done in this one.
When you explain how attacking murdering, kidnapping and jailing children is defending against an existential threat to Israel’s existence
What does an existential threat have to do with whether or not murder and kidnapping innocent civilians is defending a Palestinian homeland or resisting occupation?
And I didn’t claim to have any information about Hamas’s goals or strategies other than what they’ve said publicly.
Did you see that article in Politico about the White House predicting the “end” of Netanyahu’s time in office? I wonder if they are plotting to have him couped, since they clearly don’t trust him to continue leading. Certainly a better fate for him than some of the alternatives.
What rights of Palestinians?
Germany as guarantor of the existence of a Zionist state in the Middle East … Green Party duo Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck.
Recently EC President VDL spoke at the Hudson Institute (19 Oct. 2023) and praised their outstanding job.
Hudson Institute board member and philanthropist Nina Rosenwald, founder of the Gatestone Institute, has used her millions to cement the alliance between the pro-Israel lobby and the Islamophobic fringe. Includes Dutch Islamophobe Geert Wilders who may become part of next Dutch government after 22 November general election.
”An American anti-Muslim megadonor is publishing fake news that’s giving a boost to a German far-right party in Sunday’s election | 22 Sept. 2017 | “