Salim Nazzal

By terminology I mean roughly the semantic or the concepts which are mental representation or abstract ideas produced to explain things. My point is to unearth some of the Zionist terminology used in the Zionist propaganda which has sadly dominated the western media for decades and brainwashed millions in Europe and the USA.

The function of these terminologies is to legitimize the Zionist policy of occupation and to conceal the truth especially for the western opinion.

In Arabic language there is a semantic link between darkness and tyranny and absenting the truth. The word ”Dhallam” stands for darkness, the term “Dhulm” means oppression, if Darkness can be explained in the absence of light, and consequently the absence of truth, oppression is a form of concealing the truth. The problem of the Zionist thinking as in all racist ideologies is that it claims to own the absolute truth. Claiming to own the absolute truth is as the Syrian poet Adonis says is the source of all oppression in history.

This question was raised by the Palestinian thinker Azmi Bishra who wrote about the importance of terminology use in the Palestinian struggle against the Judio Zionist invaders stressing the importance to be attentive in this question.

Obviously, Bishara who spent years confronting the Zionist apartheid knows well the tremendous quantity and quality of falsification Jewish Zionist produced to legitimate their conquer to Palestine. For that reason, Bishara demands from those interested in unmasking the brutal face of Zionism to be extremely watchful in this regards.

Ron Wilkinson notes in an article about conflict terminology some examples of how Zionist used terminology with the aim to present a negative picture for Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims. He cites few examples of the Zionist terminology use, such as the Israeli army “enters” a place in Palestine (to refer to the daily Zionist attracts) while Palestinians “Infiltrate” an area (referring to Palestinian resistance).

Yet the history of the Zionist propaganda is earlier to the Zionist invasion. The Zionist experience of bringing Jews to Palestine to commit war crimes has been put on a sacred level and was called Aliyah. Which is considered as the fulfillment of the promises of the Jewish god? However the question of portraying everything Zionist on sacred level needs another time to talk about.

For the sake of clarity I shall divide the Zionist semantic propaganda use into two periods: the first I call the negation period. The focus in this period was on the terminologies which negate Palestinians from existence. Palestinians are chosen enemies by being in their country.

The most dominant Zionist expressions of that period that Palestine is empty of folk and that Palestinians do not exist. And in cases when they cannot conceal the truth, they describe Palestinians as Bedouins, which means they have no particular attachment to Palestine. The mental association here is that Jews take no body land, it is either empty or wait others to develop it, or it is populated by “primitive” people (who does not deserve it!) and who needs somebody else (who deserve it!) to help them developing the country.

Therefore the Zionist policy of collective crimes and displacement was the parallel work of the semantics they use. The Zionist logic can be explained as such, if Zionists believe there are no Palestinians, and since they know that this is groundless, the work to be done is to murder Palestinians and to push them to leave because Zionists have to create facts on the ground which accord with the Zionist semantics and vision.

The question is how to explain Zionist focusing on murdering Palestinian olive trees and Palestinian babies?

Zionists saw both aspects as threatening, Palestinian trees represent the Palestinian past, culture and the continuous existence in Palestine, especially the olive trees which live thousands of years. The seasons of harvesting the olives have always been connected with Palestinian culture, songs and folklore and the oil produced from the olive trees is related to popular medicine traditions. In murdering trees, they think they murder the culture of harvest linked to the harvesting seasons. And to murder Palestinian babies, Zionists think they can murder the future in terms of demography and in terms of the future Palestinian struggle for freedom.

The idea of killing Palestinian children has been one of the aspect of the Zionist thinking since their invasion. Here are two examples, one from 1947, the other is recent.

(At night of 15th of July 1947, a force of the Hagana “A Jewish terror organization” entered an orange field owned by Rashid Abo Laban which lies between Yafaa and Betah tekfa.Inside the house there is a family of 7 all were sleeping, and there were 9 workers at the house. The Hagana shot at them killed 11 including the mother and her three kids at ages 3, 7, 8).

The second is from the war on Gaza 2009 (Mordechi Elyahu,one of the leading rabbinic figures in Israel, urged the army not to refrain from killing enemy children in order to save the lives of Israeli soldier).

Therefore it is not surprising that Zionist Jews expressed in many occasions their worry from Palestinian pregnant women which they call the demographic bomb, and that too which explain why one third of the murdered in Gaza war were Palestinian babies. The Zionist negation of Palestinians was done on three levels, to negate Palestinians from the past through absenting them from history and through destroying any cultural or archeological findings that belong to palestinians, to negate Palestinian culture by both destroying it, or drying its sources including trees and water sources and sometimes by claiming Palestinian cultural heritage belonging to Jews, and finally to negate Palestinians physically by means of ruthless terror.

Within the framework of this thinking it is possible to explain the Zionist collective crimes. The Zionist psyche has already murdered Palestinians on the semantic and psychological levels. Therefore the actual murder of Palestinians becomes easy because it concords the Zionist self made image that Palestinians do not exist and thusly Jews murder no body! But when Zionists cannot escape the reality of the Palestinian existence they portray them as Part of” the whole world which hate Jews” or as “animals and insects” which made the actual murder an easy job since it is directed against non humans or that Jews are defending themselves against “terrorists”. In this line of thinking the Zionist state was born out of war crimes and its existence surpassed all notions of ethics.

Zionists shows neither care nor mercy towards Palestinians and Arabs. This is due to the racist thinking which is an integral part of the Zionist ideology and the Jewish Zionist culture. But, since, the Zionist state was and still heavily dependent on the west, Zionists are keen to conceal their crimes from the western media. For that reason great part of their propaganda terminology was mostly designed for the western public opinion. Raising the banner of the “only democracy in the middle east” and the “civilized country” against the “extremities Islamists” are just few examples of the arsenal of the Zionist propaganda directed towards the west.

And when they occupied Jerusalem and the west bank and Gaza they called it “administrative areas” .The aim here is clear which is to absent the name of Palestine, a name which Zionists fear most because it indicates that the victim is alive despite all the Zionist crimes.

However after three generation of Palestinian struggle, and after the world has largely become sympathetic with Palestinians, the Zionist terminologies have relatively changed from full negation to the second period which I call the reduction period. The reduction period does not mean at all that Zionists suddenly become moral creatures; Zionism will be always the source of wars and instability in the Middle East. But, the reality, that Zionists are extremely clever to change their skin to fit changing situations, without changing its essence as an anti humanity ideology.

The most recent Zionist propaganda is focusing on Hamas. They seek to benefit from the anti Islamic atmosphere found in the west to present them as part of the west which fights “Islamic terror”. For that reason their propaganda terminology has changed to focus on Hamas. They instructed their propaganda machine to say that Zionists are not against Palestinians but against Hamas as if Hamas is not part of the Palestinian people. So following this logic Hamas is the problem and not the Zionist occupation. Off course it is very easy to tear out this argument because Hamas was born in 1987 but what about the ethnic cleaning of Palestine in 1948, and in 1967? What about the long history of war crimes?

The most ridiculous thing in the new terminology tactics is that Zionists began to say that they want the best for Palestinians! Off course Palestinians know well that Zionism and murder, Zionism and occupation are twins, but it is obvious that the new tactics are because Zionists know that the time of truth is coming and that they can no longer brain wash the world.

Netanyahu late speech about accepting the idea of the Palestinian state is yet another good example of the Zionist new tactic. When he referred to Palestinians in (Judea and Samaria!!!), he could not reject the idea of a Palestinian state which the actual position of his party is. He mentioned the existence of Palestinians in the context that it happens that Palestinians are there! (As if Palestinians are there by accident) and accordingly it’s a problem that Israel must deal with. In this way he reflects without any doubt the Zionist mentality, psyche and logic which tries to be flexible under international pressures but without change in its supremacy nature.

He did not recognize that Palestinians are an occupied nation and that they have the right for self determination. He did not recognize the responsibility of Zionist Jews of creating a life of hell for 70 years for Palestinians. He used the same terms Zionist used when they for instance say that they decide to lift the siege on Gaza for one day, which creates a positive impression about Israel “generosity” and its “great charity” doing, while the original question is why the zionist state besiege in the first place? The same “positive impression” they try to create when they say they decided to reduce the check points in the west bank from 620 to 590! While the real question is why there are check points in the first place and Zionists know very well that there is no single Palestinian who does not dream every single day to get rid of the Zionist occupation.

-###-

Dr. Salim Nazzal is a Palestinian-Norwegian historian in the Middle East, who has written extensively on social and political issues in the region.