Naming conventions for Palestine vs Israel
Using history to inform how to refer to these two 'countries'
Quick Update
Israel cut off internet and communications a few hours ago followed by heavy bombardment of Gaza. This continues despite a peace resolution being passed in the UN at around the same time. Pray for Gaza and share this news far and wide. I am including some photographs and videos obtained from a distance. We have to be their voice right now, their inability to share shouldn’t be a cause for our silence.
Onto today’s newsletter
After watching the video on Palestine and Israel which I posted as the first part of this series, we get clear on a few things:
Israel, although consisting of long-oppressed Jewish people, is actually the oppressor of Palestine, and going against Judaism in this process, trying to pass off Zionism as Judaism even though they are not the same at all
This is one of the reasons why the West avoids blaming Israel for anything, because of the anti-semitism Europe used to have and feels guilty about, and the fear of being blamed as such in the present scenario
So people who support Palestine end up being labelled as anti-semitic, which makes no sense, because there is no shortage of Jews who support Palestine
They also end up being labelled as terrorist supporters despite a majority of the people being killed being civilians. This makes use of the Muslim = Terrorist label, which I will speak of in detail in the next email in this series.
But for this one, I encourage you to start looking past these labels and fearing being anti-semitic. I encourage you to bring a few changes into the vocabulary you use to refer to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Why do I do this? Because these changes are essential if we are to change the current narrative and recognise the validity of Palestinian rights and their lives.
Israel, as it was formed by displacing existing population in Palestine, goes from being a ‘country’ to a ‘settler colony’
Palestine goes from being this unrecognised country to being the actual country that exists there
Palestinian population become the native, indigenous population instead of being invading Arabs
Civilians of Israel become ‘settlers’ as they illegally occupy the land of Palestine
Gaza goes from being ‘an open air prison’ (=containing guilty people) to being a concentration camp (=containing all the people that are to be eliminated or left to die)
I know this might seem unnecessary, but remember that Palestinians have been dehumanised for decades, being referred to as savages and terrorists. Also note that this is no different to how other indigenous populations such as Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, and Blacks were treated.
They were also called names such as barbaric and savages to make people believe that they were not worth saving, not really human. This gave the excuse to white people to kill as many of them as they want, and to label their leaders as terrorists (as an example, Nelson Mandela was labelled as such and was only removed from this list by the USA in 2008).
There are more examples of these changes, and they are summed up in the following videos (do follow him, he makes great educational videos):
I haven’t made these videos as embeds as I was getting a message saying the video doesn’t exist. It might have to do with Instagram shadowbanning Palestinian content (yes, it is happening, and has happened with me as well).
So if we want to fight this, we have to start with using the right words. And fight it we must, because this is just colonisation of yet another non-white, indigenous people.
Keep sharing, keep praying, keep learning.
Atiba