Collective Delusions
by Dr. Hanan Ashrawi 3:45pm Sat Jan 4
[Hanan Ashrawi, an Arab League leader writes highly articulate and
intelligent opinion pieces for MIFTAH, the Palestinian Initiative for the
Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy. [...] This one from [August,
2001] exhaustively enumerates the ** linguistic tricks ** that underlie
Israeli public relations propaganda, and tries to show that their range and
systematic nature approximate a kind of collective delusion. Ashrawi is
unrelenting and sometimes bitterly sarcastic; but even a cursory glance at
the major Israeli papers - let alone the less highbrow organs - shows how
much insight she has. (article 1)
A random example: Saturday's Jerusalem Post editorial, ends with the words:
"The government must allow the security forces to clean out the nests of
terror that surround us." Here the Palestinians are vermin, and murder is
hygiene.]
[...]Hence the Israeli coinage of alternative "unreal" terms such as
"disputed" rather than "occupied" territories. "Homeland for the Jews" or
"greater Israel" has also been employed as verbal substitutes for
historical Palestine, DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE PALESTINIANS HAVE ACCEPTED
THE TERM "ISRAEL" AS APPLICABLE TO THE STATE THAT NOW EXISTS ON 78% OF
HISTORICAL PALESTINE.
Second-the whole concept of "defense" has been turned on its head to apply
only to the Israeli occupation whereby Israel is engaged in "self defense"
when it shells Palestinian homes and turns them into piles of rubble. The
"reason," of course is that Palestinians were firing from these homes
(often despite the absence of any evidence), thereby transforming them into
impersonal and banal "structures" that had to be "removed" for the proper
"defense" of the Israeli "Defense" Forces.
Similarly, civilians who are torn to bits by shells fired from Apache gun
ships or Israeli tanks are not "assassinated" according to the Israeli
lexicon. They are "eliminated" as part of Israel's "active self-defense"
policy. Any reference to "extra-judicial killings" or "cold-blooded murder"
must be expurgated from the pc (politically corrupt) dictionary of
"Israelese."
When Israel besieges the Palestinian territories and turns each village,
camp, or town into an isolation prison, the territories are "closed" in
defense of the Israelis who are "besieged" by the Palestinians (and, at
times, Arabs) in their "beleaguered" state. The fact that the Israeli army
is the strongest in the region, and that it has total control over the
lives and lands of the Palestinians, seems to have vanished from official
Israeli consciousness and discourse.
Third- A NEW CONCEPT OF "HUMANITY" seems to have evolved in the imagination
of Israeli political and religious ideologues. The term, of course, does
not seem to apply to Palestinians at all-having been described variously as
"vipers, cockroaches, crocodiles, an evil curse, etc." THE MOST APPROPRIATE
ISRAELI TERM FOR ANY PALESTINIAN HUMAN BEING IS, OF COURSE, "TERRORIST."
Such a convenient label, in one fell sweep, serves to deprive the
Palestinian of his/her humanity as some form of a genetically-violent
species, thereby unfit for human treatment or rights, hence fully deserving
of any form of brutality exercised against him/her in the course of
Israel's struggle for "self-defense." "Terrorism," of course is never
applicable to any Israeli individual or policy regardless of the massive
targeting of a captive civilian Palestinian population that has been
deprived of all forms of security or rights.
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=39683&group=webcast
I appeal to you to have the courage to intervene, to ensure that the
oppressor is held accountable and the victim is protected, to enact those
principles and values that not only protect lives but that also imbue life
with the human qualities that make it worth living. Despite our
overwhelming pain, we have not surrendered to the forces of occupation,
colonization, racism, and dehumanization - nor have we adopted their moral
distortions. I ask you also not to succumb, but to maintain and enhance the
struggle for dignity, equality, freedom, and justice as an act of
collective affirmation on behalf of humanity as a whole.Hanan Ashwari.
South africa last year or 2001.
