The latest New York Times report on the new Israeli home constructions in the occupied West Bank follows the mainstream media convention by calling them “settlements.” There’s no better example of George Orwell’s insight that the language we use actually shapes our ability to think.
Patrick Kingsley’s report uses the word “settlements” or “settlers” a total of 15 times. Add another seven “settlements” in the headline and photo captions, and the grand total is 22. By the end, you feel mentally bludgeoned.
Only one out of the 22 times does Kingsley call them “Jewish settlements.” The 21 omissions are misleading. Imagine if he stated the truth even half the time — that these 3,000 new homes are on Palestinian land, but no Palestinian will ever be allowed to live in one of them. If the past four decades of mainstream U.S. reporting had been allowed to make this accurate point, would Americans have any doubt that the Israeli system is a form of apartheid?
But let’s not stop there. Take the word “settlement” itself. It has an innocuous, benign ring to it, with the implication that the “settlers” are building homes in empty, unoccupied areas. Instead, though, Israel is constructing in territory it militarily occupies, which is a violation of international law, and Palestinian people already live there. Kingsley — or his editors — try and downplay this fact with the customary New York Times prevarication; he does say that building “settlements” is “a process that most of the international community considers a breach of international law, which prohibits an occupying power from moving its people into occupied territory.”
“Most of the international community?” Then the Times should tell us who belongs to that minority that thinks the “settlements” are allowed. Which countries? Which international human rights agencies? The truth is that the “settlement” justifiers are a minuscule number — a portion of the U.S. Congress, and maybe a handful of tiny Pacific Island nations dependent on the U.S. for aid.
If not the word “settlements,” what then? What’s wrong with the perfectly good English words “colonies” and “colonizers?” Why doesn’t the headline on Kingsley’s article read:
Israel Advances Plan to Expand Jewish-Only Colonies in Occupied West Bank Palestine
It only sounds harsh because we are used to decades of reading and hearing about “settlements.” Whoever in Israel or in the Israel lobby back in the 1970s concocted the euphemism was a genius at propaganda.
What about a compromise? In the 1970s, during the Troubles in the north of Ireland, there was a linguistic battle along with the actual violence. Here’s one example: the territory’s second city is known as “Derry” to Catholics, and as “Londonderry” to Protestants. The BBC faced a dilemma: how could it report without showing bias? The network came up with a solution; it alternated the two names in its reports. If the reporter opened by saying “Londonderry,” they said “Derry” next, and so on.
Maybe the U.S. mainstream media could try the same solution? Discarding “settlements” could be too much of a shock. But then, in your next sentence, use “colonies.”
It won’t happen, at least any time soon. But if this one change alone were carried out, U.S. public opinion would shift even more rapidly than it already is.
Hell, calling this stolen land ‘settlements’ is actually a step up from when they were referred to as ‘neighborhoods’ many years ago! For some reason, the warmth and fuzziness of the term didn’t take hold (what a shock!) and the term seems to have disappeared.
Just as we have to keep referring to Zionism as a racist ideology, we should also remind people that the settlements are nothing but stolen property. Period!
Actually, there is a ‘better example of George Orwell’s insight that the language we use actually shapes our ability to think’. As echinococcus points out, it is reserving the term ‘occupied’ only for the territories occupied in 1967. Even if you’re prepared to concede that the UN General Assembly’s 1947 partition plan was somehow valid or binding, much of what they now refer to euphemistically as ‘Israel Proper’ was occupied by force in 1948-49. This is a much more dangerous form of mind control, so insidious it even infects those crtiticising the misuse of settlements and settlers. Indeed, when we recognise all of Palestine as territory under hostile occupation by a settler colony, it’s clear that there’s nothing whatsoever innocuous about those terms.
“We’ll make a pastrami sandwich out of them. We’ll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in twenty-five years’ time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.” – Ariel Sharon, 1973 (who later became Israel’s Prime Minister)
WASHINGTON, October 29, Reuters
The White House revealed its “King Solomon Plan For Middle East Fairness” on Friday at the White House weekly news conference.
“For decades Israel has been building settlements in the West Bank, while thousands of Palestinians have seen their homes demolished due to unauthorized bathroom additions. But from now on, the United States will champion fairness and equality in the Holy Land: all aid to Israel will be frozen until the Palestinians are allowed to build settlements in the East Bank”, said White House spokesperson Jen Psaki.
The use of colonialist terminology like “settlements”, “outposts” etc. for territory invaded post-1967 only is dangerous. It reinforces Zionist propaganda in the minds of the readers.
All of Palestine is invaded, stolen and occupied by colonialists. Also, the use of “normal” colonial terms is woefully benign and insufficient, as the invaders are a genocidal mob intent on exterminating the owners of the entire territory, their culture and even their memory (practicing a racial supremacist, overly bloody military dictatorship in the meantime.)
One appropriate word, taken from medical terminology, is “metastases”. Another acceptable name is one the Zionists use among themselves: “new conquests”.