To understand the language used to describe the Palestine-Israel conflict you need a dictionary from Alice in Wonderland where everything is upside down as Eduardo Galeano would say.

  In this conflict—the most powerful military in the Middle East, equipped with squadrons of F-16 fighter jets, (and even F-35 stealth aircraft), countless guided missiles, hundreds of tanks, 155 millimeter howitzers, sophisticated spying technology, drones, and with full economic and military (if needed) support from the old colonial powers of Europe and the United States, and yet Israel is always portrayed as the poor victim, and the people of Gaza, without any air coverage or protection, much less fighter jets or anti-missile defenses, , without air shelters, their hospitals, schools, even family homes accurately targeted by the Israeli military with their guided missiles, and the Palestinians with their slingshots and rocks and pathetically inaccurate rockets made out of fertilizer that barely reach their intended targets, if they reach it at all—they are called “terrorists.”

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in solidarity to protest the Israeli bombings on Palestinians outside of the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest on May 18, 2021. (Sean Reyes/ El Tecolote)

In this struggle the Israelis have the right to defend themselves and the Palestinians have the right to be bulls-eye targets. The Israelis have the right to international solidarity and the Palestinians have the right to blockades and platitudes such as “We are concerned about the situation,” or “We are very concerned about the situation.”

 The Israelis have the right to live in peace and the Palestinians have the right to die of desperation, hunger, and the blindness of the world. The Israelis have the right to be settlers from Brooklyn and the Palestinians have the right to be refugees in their own land.

Language also gets flipped upside-down by the US and international media. While the media uses words like “a barrage of rockets from Hamas,” the Israeli Prime Minister, who launched the massive deadly attacks on Gaza referred to it as “a drizzle” (San Francisco Chronicle May 22, 2021, Section I, page 2). So is it a drizzle of rockets or a barrage? But the media also creates its own reality. Associate Press Stylebook for example does not use the word Palestine because “it is not fully independent, unified state.” Then why doesn’t AP refer to Israel as an Apartheid State, as the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem recently pointed out? This type of dishonest language would make George Orwell smile in his grave.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in solidarity to protest the Israeli bombings on Palestinians outside of the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest on May 18, 2021. (Sean Reyes/ El Tecolote)

But language also has its counterpoint—why not refer to Palestine, in capital letters like I just did to reinforce the United Nations mandate of 1948 so that the independent sovereign nation of Palestine can rise from the rubble of apartheid and the forced expulsion of the native population, which under International Law is a crime? The forced expulsion of any population is not just a legal crime, but a moral crime that should outrage everyone that remembers the genocide against Native Americans in this country.  

But ultimately if Black Lives Matter, if Brown and Indigenous Lives Matter, then why don’t Palestinian Lives Matter? If Israel has the right to keeps its knee on the neck of every Palestinian, then why doesn’t Palestine have the right to be free of this tyranny?