[wvns] Language as an Instrument of Crime
Language as an Instrument of Crime
A Primer on Israeli Doublespeak
By RANNIE AMIRI
http://www.counterpunch.com/amiri07142007.html
It is indeed a great irony that George Orwell wrote
1984 in 1948, the same year Israel was created. For
this nation, above all others, has proven itself most
adept in the use and promulgation of doublespeak.
Defined by Webster's Dictionary as "evasive,
ambiguous, high-flown language intended to deceive or
confuse," Israeli governments have always relied on it
to justify the expansionist nature of their state,
excuse the confiscation of land and minimize the
extent to which its inhabitants have been mistreated
or abused.
A few examples:
The Security Fence
The monstrosity which Israel is constructing along the
entire length of the West Bank is no more for security
than it is a fence. The barrier, started in 2003 and
now more than half complete, is scheduled to run over
450 miles and reach a height of 25 feet four times
longer than and twice as high as the former Berlin
Wall. Composed of concrete and electrified wire,
surrounded by trenches and mounted with strategically
positioned sniper towers, calling it a "fence" is more
than farcical.
In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The
Hague ruled construction of the barrier illegal (a
verdict, of course, ignored). Within the last week,
the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs issued a report indicating that
it will "restrict access to workplaces, health,
education, and to places of worship." In addition, it
fully recognized that Arab-majority East Jerusalem
will be severed from the West Bank by its route. In
another area, 50,000 Palestinians would be completely
isolated and restricted to the zone between it and
Israel resulting in their inability "to access
critical services such as schools, clinics and shops
in either Israel or the West Bank without special
permits."
More telling is where the barrier is being built.
According to the UN report, 80% of it on West Bank
land.
The "security fence" is thus an offensive structure
rather than the defensive one it purports to be. It is
just one illustration of how Israel attempts to
obfuscate a reality in this case, a very expensive
land grab - through use of language.
Moderate Physical Pressure and Work Accidents
Israel was at one time the only country to officially
sanction the use of torture, euphemistically referred
to as "moderate physical pressure." Lea Tsemel, a
defense lawyer and founder of the Public Committee
Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) remarked, "Israel is
the only Western country that openly uses torture.
This is not some brute in the secret services beating
up a prisoner. It's done in the open. There is quiet
legitimation by a high-ranking commission and
government ministers" (New York Times, May 8, 1997).
The Sunday Times had already arrived at the same
conclusion in June 1977: "Torture of Arab prisoners is
so widespread and systematic that it cannot be
dismissed as 'rogue cops' exceeding orders. It appears
to be sanctioned as deliberate policy."
Whenever a detainee died under torture, it was
dismissed as an unfortunate "work accident." It took a
ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999 to ban the
practice. Unfortunately they have now reversed
themselves. A judgment issued this past June allows
Shin Bet to use methods regarded by PCATI as torture
when in a "ticking bomb" situation. With likely wide
interpretation of this circumstance, it appears a
green light has just been issued to reinstate the
practice.
The Absent Present
This bizarre term was used describe those Palestinians
who were not driven out of Palestine in 1948, but
remained within what was to later become Israel. If
they temporarily left their homes or were away from
their land during the war, they were prevented from
reclaiming it. Confiscation of the property of the
"absent present" was then permitted (Haaretz, January
14, 1955).
The Abandoned Areas
"We take the land first and the law comes after."
- Yehoshafat Palmon, Arab Affairs advisor to the mayor
of Jerusalem (Guardian, April 26, 1972).
Whether to assuage the conscience of emigrating Jews
or not, the Zionists who founded Israel passed a
series of discriminatory laws with harmless and
protective sounding titles explicitly for the purpose
of expropriating inhabited Palestinian land. In some
instances, these laws were made retroactive.
They carried such names as the Emergency Defense
Regulations, the Abandoned Areas Ordinance, the
Emergency Articles for the Exploitation of
Uncultivated Lands, and as described above, the
Absentee Property Law.
These laws all attempted to reinforce the myth peddled
by Zionists depicting Palestine as "a land without a
people." Nonetheless, they were aptly described by the
Jewish writer Moshe Keren as "wholesale robbery with a
legal coating."
Definition of Israeli doublespeak: the use of language
to hide crimes of the state.
It would surely make Big Brother proud.
Rannie Amiri is an independent commentator on issues
dealing with the Arab and Islamic worlds. He may be
reached at: rbamiri @ yahoo.com.
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