The Importance of Language in Discussing Palestine
On the 5th of November, King’s College London hosted “peace activists” Hamze Awawde and Magen Inon to discuss their stories about how the last year of “conflict” had impacted them. There was much wrong with the event, from both speakers’ connection to the New Israel Fund to the fact that the event was held on the anniversary of the death of Dr. Maisara Al-Rayyes, a King’s alumnus working as a medic in Gaza murdered in an Israeli air strike and whose body remains still buried under the rubble, the focus of this piece is on something different. Perhaps one of the most problematic aspects underlying this “conversation” was the rhetoric espoused by both speakers when describing what is happening on the ground in Gaza.
As a principle matter, language is incredibly important when describing violence, pertaining to the “justice of recognition” (to use Magen’s own words) for the victims of violence. Simply put, the words one uses has unshakable connotations and implies states of events that must be accurate for the sake of justice. Saying a victim of domestic violence had fought with their partner rather than was beat by their partner leads to a difference in how they’re treated and how culpability is assigned. More relevantly, calling a genocide a “conflict” or a “military operation” implies there is an equivalence, moral or otherwise, between those inflicting the massacres and those resisting it. The implication is that the civilian deaths can be excused because they are simply collateral damage in a grander, more complex war where both sides are to blame for the destruction. There is no moral equivalence in genocide. There is no moral equivalence in colonialism. In response to this exact objection brought up at the event by an S4J member, Hamze and Magen make two broad claims we ought to deconstruct: 1) language must be sensitive to the contentiousness of the “situation”, and; 2) it is a matter of pragmatism to use language that will bring the most people to the table to actualise a solution.
Let’s begin with unpacking the first claim. Language ought to be sensitive to a situation insofar as that language is grounded in fact and accurately reflects the reality at hand. Therefore let’s examine the facts. A number of governments, NGOs, and experts have asserted that the Israeli Occupation Force’s actions constitute a genuine. The most conservative estimations put the death toll of Palestinians at around 43,000, the most academic studies posit the actual death toll is five times that. Roughly 62,000 people have died from starvation and 5,000 from lack of access to treatment for diseases. To simply quantify the level of destruction, 80% of homes and 50% of buildings have been destroyed in Gaza. Therefore we should not be surprised that 75% of Middle East scholars along with the UNOCHR and the ICJ argue either outright that Israel is committing a germicide or at least a “plausible case” can be made to that fact. The “damage” to the Israeli side has been minimal. Since October 7th, the death count of Israelis hovers somewhere in the 1,200 mark, 800 of whom are civilians. It may be interesting to bore that this number was reduced because the immediate Israeli response was so heavy handed that bodies were charred beyond identification that officials could not initially tell who was Israeli. That is to say, as confirmed by Israeli officials, Israeli Occupation Forces followed the protocols of the infamous Hannibal Directive and fired on Israeli civilians because it is a matter of state policy to leave no witnesses to its crimes, meaning that Israelis are better dead than as hostages. If it’s not abundantly clear than any form of equivalence made between the perpetrators of settler colonial violence and the colonized resisting their oppression by whatever means possible falls flat to the facts, then sadly not much else can be. The victims of a genocide are treated in the collective public conscience and remembered in history than the victims of a particularly heavy handed military operation. Recognizing the correct circumstances of a person’s death is pivotal to just recognition. To be murdered by an intentionally malicious state is not the same as being killed passively as a matter of unforeseen circumstance. The language employed by Hamze and Magen of “conflict,” in part led by “revenge” and “unproductive hatred” is deeply unconscionable and undermines the gravity of Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.
The second argument they make is just as troubling. What exactly is a pragmatic solution to genocide? That’s an answer they failed to answer when directly asked. Working inside the confines of a politic that has shown itself to be unflinching even to traditional methods of recourse is far from pragmatic. Conforming to the arbitrarily set linguistic confines of civility and agreement only erases Palestinian suffering and prevents discourse on paths forward. For over a year we have listened to the anodyne and vacuous platitudes of Western politicians on Palestine, has any progress been made? Surely not. If we are engaging this argument on terms of pragmatism, then it should be said that to curate an actual solution that not only people can discuss but can conceptualize requires descriptively potent language. Experts across all fields from economics to biology to physics pride themselves on their models’ explanatory and descriptive potency because they can therefore be used as instruments to affect change. Consequently, the language they use is highly scrutinized. Why can’t the same can’t be said for geopolitics? A field by its nature highly specified to the material and social contexts of the places it reflects on may even need to be held to a higher standards because the narratives it plays a heavy hand in purporting do translate to life and death. Ultimately, it won’t be uncontroversial language that brings people to the table— this genocide is being live-streamed to the entire world right now, the images speak for themselves. Regardless of how institutions of power frame the genocide, the fact that the victims themselves are able to document their oppression has mobilized millions across the world to demand change. No one needs convincing, they are either callous and apathetic to genocide or they are demanding accountability.
The last 13 months has seen one of the greatest propaganda campaigns carried out by the apartheid state in its history. For the large part it’s failing. The rhetoric it espouses only resonates with a select few in the most stratified aspects of society whose proximity to power allows them to buy into the narrative because of the personal privileges afforded to those who do. The language used by these speakers and ultimately the why the university chose these two to speak serve one and the same purpose— to advance the interests of the Israeli state. The heavy repression against those who use the correct lexicon of apartheid and genocide speaks to the efficacy of speaking truth to power. The magnitude of the global movement against Israeli apartheid has made one thing clear: we won’t play on their terms.
Further Literature
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2023/2024/Costs%20of%20War_Human%20Toll%20Since%20Oct%207.pdf
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/66e083452b3cbf4bbd719aa2/t/66fcd754b472610b6335d66f/1727846228615/Appendix+20241002.pdf
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/gloom-about-the-day-after-the-gaza-war-pervasive-among-mideast-scholars/
