The Abuse of Language - Concealing Truth

You can find many examples from different spheres of life. It is a practice that seems to be spreading and is certainly not confined to the pronouncements of political figures. There is the chilling “military-speak” that has accustomed us to the almost comfortable-sounding “collateral damage” that shrugs off as incidental - and certainly not worth counting - the slaughter and maiming of civilian bystanders. I find most disquieting its current use in the appalling events in the Middle East.
I have previously written about the use of the word “security” as a cover-all to justify any action in the eyes of a credulous public. It is widely used by Israel, but also of course by US and UK amongst others. We should keep our critical faculties alert whenever confronted by this word. Let me give one example that I heard at the conference sponsored by War on Want on “Profiting from the Occupation” in London on 9 July.

Zaytoun is a small organisation which is attempting to help market Palestinian olive oil in Europe and so give some income to the beleaguered Palestinian farmers in the West Bank. There is a problem over obtaining glass bottles for the product as Israel, for reasons of “security”, does not allow Palestinians to manufacture bottles. They could, of course, be used for petrol bombs by terrorists. There is, apparently, no security risk however posed by bottles manufactured by Israel and sold by them to Palestinians. Security? Or ensuring a captive market and eliminating competition?

‘Natural Balance’
From the vocabulary of Israel come various other interesting phrases brought to my attention at the conference and from items on the web. Recently the Israeli Army has been liberating numbers of wild boar and poisonous snakes onto the land owned by Palestinian farmers near Salfit. This land is near illegal Israeli settlements. The pigs destroy the farmer’s crops and also attack them. What was the Army’s reason for their release? They were, a spokesman said “restoring the natural balance” of the region. Odd that it was Palestinian land that required such restoration, and not the land of some moshav in Israel.
“Withdrawal” is a word much used to describe Israel’s action in removing its citizens from the settlements in Gaza, which like all settlements built on occupied land are illegal under International Law. As Jeff Halper of the peace group the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions commented, it is an interesting use of a word that suggests a contraction when, in fact, Israel is in the process of expanding by annexing more territory in the West Bank so that it will have 85% of the land area of the former Palestine rather than the present 78%. “We gave the Palestinians what they wanted” is the reproachful comment, “and look at all the Qassam missiles they are firing at us from Gaza”. No mention of the fact that, since the “withdrawal”, Gaza has been almost continuously cut off, with closure of the exit/entry points leaving millions of dollars worth of Palestinian vegetables to rot without hope of export, and people prevented from travelling to West Bank or Egypt, or anywhere, while Apache helicopters, F16s and drones fly overhead ready to continue the policy of “killing the disease in Palestinian society” by “necrotactics” (ie extrajudicial executions).
Indeed some analysts claim that the Gaza withdrawal was implemented because the technology of aerial bombing had developed to the point where policing could be carried out by that “cheap military solution” without the risk of casualties to ground forces. To back up the air power, of course, there are also gunboats along the coast and three artillery batteries along the eastern wall of the Gaza prison which regularly add their shells to the cascade of weaponry falling on the crowded, impoverished Gazans, giving them ‘just what they wanted’. And, naturally, Israel retained the “right” to re-invade Gaza at any time, a right it has been exercising vigorously, bulldozing further homes, trees and property and establishing a flattened “buffer zone” where all living things are shot on sight, just as it intends to do in Lebanon.
“Right to return”, as used by Israel, refers to the automatic right of those defined as Jews, either by descent from a Jewish grandmother or by conversion to Judaism, to become citizens of Israel and dwell in the land. Obviously such people are not “returning” to a country in which they personally previously lived. They may not even have distant ancestors who ever lived there. The claim is based on the historic presence of a Jewish kingdom that ended almost 2000 years ago. The intervening history is of no account to the Zionists, nor is the “right to return” to the homes and lands that were theirs of the Palestinian refugees driven out in 1948 and 1967 in the creation of the state of Israel and its subsequent military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Were these people allowed back it would be a real personal return. Under International Law refugees do have the right to return but, in practice, this has been denied to Palestinians who continue to live under cramped and miserable conditions in refugee camps both in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in the surrounding countries.
The terms “terrorist” and “war on terror” are bandied about with a freedom that should raise questions. For Israel, bent on imposing its own agenda of expansion and domination on the area, it is a very helpful way of describing Palestinians and their sympathisers and gaining support from the “West”. For President Bush, too, it is a handy way of justifying military action which, just possibly(?), could have other real motives not unconnected with oil. So, Hamas and Hezbullah are “terrorists” while we “have the right to self defence”, and, of course, unlike them, do not “aim to kill civilians”. Which makes it all right, only collateral damage after all. Without such an aim Israel has managed to kill so far over 400 Lebanese civilians in the last two weeks as well as over a hundred Palestinians in Gaza... but they, of course, were all “terrorists”, or, if children, then would have grown up to become terrorists given half a chance.
According to some Israelis “the only good Arab is a dead Arab” so, in fact, killing them is making them good, I suppose. Certainly, Mr Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry claimed on a recent Radio 4 “Today” program, before the massacre at Qana, that the present action in Lebanon is actually “benefiting” the Lebanese and helping them to enforce UN resolution 1559 (which called for the disarming of Hezbullah as well as a complete withdrawal by Israel from Lebanese territory ... something it never quite did, remaining in the Shaba Farms).
I heard Mr Regev continue, with some indignation, that it was “time the UN took its resolutions seriously and enforced them” and pricked up my ears. Dangerous ground for a country which has continuously ignored all the many UN resolutions, 242 etc, that called for an end to the occupation of the land conquered in 1967!

There is a Hebrew word “Chutzpah” which I think fits Mr Regev’s pronouncements. It means something like ‘outrageous effrontery’. To avoid the cry “why single out Israel for criticism” I should add, that we have never kept count of the civilians killed by our wars in Iraq or Afghanistan by which we, too, claim to be benefiting them and the world. I read a comment: “President Bush is very clear that he is making the world a safer place”. The question is “how much safer can we afford to let him make us?’”

Home Rebuilt
To end with something positive I would like to report the rebuilding, by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition, of a home for one family of 17 in Anata, near Jerusalem in the last two weeks of July. A team of Israelis, Palestinians and Internationals worked together in friendship and solidarity, crossing the divides and defying the discriminatory demolition policy of the State of Israel. Some people in Highland Pertshire donated towards this work and helped to show the world that it is possible to live another way. Peace comes from justice, respect and compassion - not from building walls or from demolishing hope