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Dr. Steve Carol is a Prof. of History (retired) previously affiliated with Adelphi University, Long Island University, Mesa Community College and Mesa Public Schools. He was a frequent guest historian on KKNT (960 AM) "Middle East Radio Forum."
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By Dr. Steve Carol
August 22, 2004
Originally published by in the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix.
It pains me to see any paper, let alone any Jewish publication, use the vocabulary of the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people. I doubt this publication would refer to Israel as the "Zionist entity." Why use the vocabulary employed over and over again by the detractors of
Israel?
Many publications have referred to the "Creation of Israel" (in 1948). Rather. Israel was re-established, 1,875 years after the second independent Israeli state was conquered by Roman invaders. If any states in the Middle East were "created" they are Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq -- all "created" by Western colonizers. Saudi Arabia, was "created" by force by one man, King Ibn Saud.
The territories won by Israel in its defensive war of 1967, the Six Day War, are NOT "Occupied Territories" a term implying an independent existence before the conflict. According to international law, they are disputed territories, whose future is subject to negotiation between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs who want a true peace, not an interim cease-fire between waves of terrorism and war, providing, of course, that such leaders can be found (and kept alive).
Speaking of the disputed territories, the area is not correctly called the "West Bank." According, not only to the Bible, but also to United Nations documents of the period 1947-49, the area's proper name is Judea-Samaria. The "West Bank" was a name concocted by King Abdullah I of Trans-Jordan and his British advisors, allowing the king to annex land outside of his artificially "created" kingdom. The term "West Bank" eradicates all Jewish historical connection to the area. Besides the political origin phrase, one must wonder from a geographical perspective how wide a river bank can be? A river bank may be a few feet or so, but not some 30 miles deep from the river!
When we use the term "settlements" and "settlers," we feed attempts to portray not just the disputed territories and its inhabitants, but all of Israel and its people as a "settler state" akin to apartheid in South Africa. If Gush Etzion, Hevron and other communities are settlements, so too were Tel Aviv, Rishon L'Tzion and Degania along with many others. To accept the Arab vocabulary and demands for removing "settlements" and "settlers" implies we also would see the dismantling of Tel Aviv, and many other cities, towns and villages in pre-1967 Israel and removal of their inhabitants. "Towns, villages" they are, with inhabitants. "Settlements" and "settlers" only gives the Arabs propaganda ammunition.
We have seen references to "the wall" raising historical analogies to the Berlin Wall. The barrier is a "security fence" for almost its entire planned length, similar to security fences along the Israel-Lebanon frontier and the Israel-Gaza Strip frontier. Even India is constructing the same kind of barrier in Kashmir and for the same purpose, to keep out terrorists.
Since before the re-establishment of the State of Israel, those that violently oppose the Jewish state have been called "militants," "fedayeen," "guerrillas," and even "freedom fighters." Time and again, for over 100 years, we have seen that they are terrorists and murderers bent on the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. Even UN General Burns (commander of UNTSO forces) labeled them as such. Why dignify their evil intent with their own propaganda?
Attempts to get the world to use anti-Israeli vocabulary have been largely successful, even to the point of referring to the "Nakhba," the "Disaster," rather than the Israeli War of Independence. This term is gaining favor worldwide, obscuring the fact that Israel fought a defensive war against invading Arab forces to regain its independence. Similarly, we should not refer to the "October War" of 1973, but rather to the Yom Kippur War, another defensive war against Egyptian and Syrian attacks on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
We can only hope that any Jewish publication as well as other media avoids the propaganda trap. Certainly we need not fall into it by accepting such vocabulary into our daily use.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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