Language
as an Instrument of the Dehumanization of Palestine
Maryam Sakeenah
A cursory look at the history of the implantation of the
Zionist state in the heart of Palestine and the events that ensued is enough to
make it clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that Palestinians have been
subjected to systematic oppression and injustice. When October 7 happened, it
was not difficult for anyone with a very basic understanding of the history of
the region to see that this was an inevitable reaction to 70+ years of brutal
subjugation and state sponsored violence.
Yet for most people residing in the European or American
continents, the writing on the wall had never been obvious. Ten months down the
blood-splattered trajectory, many still debate whether Palestinians are also
entitled to human rights…
For still more, it took thousands of excruciating images of
unimaginable cruelty, death and destruction to stir the conscience into
realization that the insistence that ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’
does little to vindicate the unspeakable agony being inflicted on vulnerable
Palestinians.
It has taken ten months of relentless, brutal assault and
incomprehensible suffering for some of us to abandon our indifference,
insensitivity and smugness- and for many more, it is still not enough.
Yet psychologists and philosophers tell us that human beings
are endowed with empathy as a part of their nature. It is the systematic
dehumanization of a people that renders them unworthy of empathy. For
Palestinians to reach that point, the Western media influenced by powerful
Zionist lobbies has made a concerted and consistent effort. Through selective
relaying of information, otherization of non Western narratives, prioritization
of a single narrative and suppression of counter-narratives, the media has
deflected human empathy away from the plight of Palestine. In addition, distortion
and manipulation of facts and the ground realities in order to suit the
interests of the West’s Blue Eyed Boy in the Middle East, stereotyping and
propaganda are routinely used by the global media. This has made sure
Palestinian voices remain unheard, their stories untold, their narrative
marginalized as opposed to the Israeli narrative that is mainstreamed
unquestioningly.
Language is used very insidiously to push forward the
narrative of Israel as a victim of Palestinian ‘terrorism’, entitled to ‘defend
itself’ against a battered, besieged nation of orphans, limbless youth,
bereaved widows and traumatized, emaciated men.
For example, mainstream news media routinely refers to the
Israeli assault on Gaza as the ‘Israel-Hamas conflict’. This is problematic
because it puts the Zionist nuclear armed state at par with the Palestinian
resistance whose arsenal only comprises of home-made primitive ‘rockets’ that
work more like small fireworks and are nearly always intercepted by the Israeli
Iron Dome technology. It makes it seem like a war between equals- while on the
one side is one of the most heavily armed nations in the world equipped by the
wealth of the entire Western hemisphere, while on the other hand are
stone-throwing, slingshot-wielding barefoot children without homes to go back
to. On the one hand is an invincible military power and on the other hand is a
stateless entity reduced to rubble, a population comprised of refugees and
internally displaced people deprived of the most basic essentials for meagre
survival. It is not a conflict, but a military onslaught, an assault, an
offensive, a genocidal war on civilians- mostly children and women.
Another problematic construct that is frequently used in
stories from Agence France Presse (AFP) is that what is going on in Gaza is
Israel’s ‘retaliatory campaign provoked by the Hamas attack on October 7.’ This
conveys the meaning that the incursion into Israeli territory on October 7 was
the reason why Israel launched its biggest military onslaught that pales the
nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the defenceless people of
occupied and besieged Gaza. It ignores the fact that October the 7 was itself a
reaction or retaliation to ongoing systematic oppression unleashed on
Palestinians since years. It ignores the fact that the Israeli attack on Gaza
was well-planned, pre-meditated and orchestrated after decades of military
buildup, planning, AI-assisted execution under the supervision of Israel’s
ultra conservative rightwing government. Hardline Zionist warmonger Netanyahu presides
over a cabinet dominated by radicals who openly reject the two state solution
and any prospects of Palestinian statehood. Individuals like finance minister
Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had been
kicking up war hysteria well before October 7, and have never masked their
intent to carry out the wholesale elimination of Palestine. October 7 certainly
did not happen in a vacuum.
Similarly, referring to the Palestinian resistance as
‘militancy’ or worse, ‘terrorism’ implies that the resistance movement against
illegal occupation is a sort of rebellion against a legitimate authority.
Referring to Israelis who have forcibly occupied and have
illegally settled in Palestinian lands as ‘settlers’ ignores the fact that
under international law, these ‘settlements’ are a violation and a breach of
fundamental rights. It also ignores that these ‘settlers’ are in effect
colonizers who use violence and terror to extort territory from those who
rightfully own it.
A careful study of news headlines from mainstream media
reveals that the passive voice is often used when referring to Israeli war
crimes- for example, saying that a certain number of Palestinian deaths or
casualties occurred as a result of a certain operation ‘targeting Hamas’ does
not convey the fact that Israel killed children playing in a football field or
sheltering in a school, or under treatment at a ramshackle hospital; that the
attack was planned knowing fully well that children, families, women,
grandmothers would be killed. Often, the ‘Hamas target’ the attack aimed for has
no additional details provided at all other than a vague reference, and the
death toll of innocent civilians is minimized as ‘collateral damage’ in an
operation for self-defence.
The overall effect of the use of language to vindicate the
Israeli narrative is that of desensitization of the Western public towards the suffering
of Palestine and the routinization of atrocities committed against innocent
people- as if this was the Palestinian ‘normal’, ongoing indefinitely in the
background. In employing language to undermine the cause of Palestinian freedom
so deliberately, systematically and strategically, the international media
bears responsibility and culpability as a diabolical party to the genocide of
Palestinians.
