Israel has lost the narrative war. To dismantle the Israeli propaganda machinery’s work even more granularly, we should collectively adopt terminology that empowers the truth even more. Taking control of our narrative starts with owning our vocabulary. Words have power and dictate the parameters of discussion.
Here are some commonly employed examples of misleading vocabulary used by Israel to play the narrative war on its own terms, which others might innocently use too.
(1) “War” or “conflict”
Don’t call it “the Israel-Hamas War”. There is so much wrong with that.
It’s not a “war” at all. Don’t even call it a “conflict”. Call it what it is. Call it a “genocide”. Call it “ethnic cleansing”. Call it “mass murder”. Call it “I will kill whoever I want with impunity.”
The words “war” or “conflict” imply that what is happening is an evenly-matched struggle. Two armies going at each other. Instead, what is happening is that a colonizer army is bombing and genocidally mass-murdering the innocents that it has colonized, forcibly displacing them and stealing even more of their land. Unimaginable amounts of wealth and technology on Isreal’s side, versus almost all unarmed civilians bar a few brave but meagre attempts at armed resistance.
So don’t call it the Israel-Hamas war — as if it’s an even-sided struggle. Israel is using this nomenclature as a cover to justify its genocide and mass murder. Israel is bombing Palestinians. Indiscriminately. Army versus civilians: Israel is mass murdering civilians. Call a spade a spade.
(2) “Israel versus Hamas”
Don’t call it “the Israel-Hamas War”. There is so much wrong with that.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say a sadistic, terrorist state with deep pockets and shadow control wanted to justify mass murdering a people it deems to be lesser than itself. What’s the most plausible excuse that their propaganda machine could spin, sell, and shove down the throats of the world? Easy. That evil sub-humans hide amongst the thousands of innocents that they are killing. That they’re just trying to get those dehumanized victims of their one-sided propaganda — and whoops, those poor innocents accidentally get in the way. Oh, well.
Sure, demonize the resistance to your decades of settler violence, murderous land-grabs, daily humiliations, keeping the Gazans in an open-air prison, and other such evil tactics. Raise hue and cry over their puddles of transgressions (yes, wrong is still wrong), but conveniently overlook your own rivers of transgression. The bully crying at the resisting victim’s wrongdoing (yes, wrong is still wrong), then using that as an excuse to escalate their bullying. Totally not psychopathic.
This false equivalence of “Palestinians” and “evil fighters” is the only possible justification and cover for Israel’s racist apartheid and ethnic cleansing. See, the misinformed Westerner can cheer for Israel fighting cartoonish "baddies". "Hamas" is possible to hate as a group of cartoonish, evil fighters who simply do not want the poor Israelis to catch a break. Grrr. (Like during the imperialist, so-called "War on Terror", Western media often used the term "terrorist" to really imply "those evil Muslims".) But you’d have to be an uncommonly hateful racist to despise the Palestinians as a whole, and give Israel a pass for bombing Palestinians.
So don’t call it the Israel-Hamas war — as if Israel is only against a certain faction of Palestinians. Israel is using this nomenclature as a cover to justify its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians as a whole, not just a select few resistance fighters. Israel is bombing Palestinians. Indiscriminately. Call a spade a spade.
(3) Collateral damage (whoops)
What Israel did to the major hospitals in Palestine was monstrously clear and clearly monstrous. As for this claim about evil nasties hiding conveniently in the midst of (or under) those that Israel has a history of oppressing … yeah, sure. Again, it’s obviously much easier for Israel to sell the idea that they really mean to bomb this pesky Hamas, but somehow these unfortunate Palestinians — whoops — keep getting killed. By mistake, of course.
I wonder if this boogeyman of Hamas was hiding in Israel, would Israel be as trigger-happy and liberal with their use of carpet-bombing? Would they still so freely bomb entire apartment buildings to the ground, casually turn entire neighborhoods (hundred of families, hello) into rubble, or deliberately lay to waste the refugee camps of people that they violently displaced? As if the uncountable innocent murders are all collateral that their suddenly-not-precise technology killed.
Or, if this boogeyman of Hamas supposedly was hiding in Israel, would Israeli strikes become more surgical all of a sudden? Maybe a little less civilian casualties (Israel doesn’t have majority civilians in the way that Palestine does, by the way, as most Israelis are mandatorily-trained reserve soldiers). Surely, an apartheid regime would not consider the blood of Palestinians to be more expendable than that of their own natives, right?
Oh, Hamas is hiding in civilian areas and using body shields? How convenient for the sadistic colonizer who continues their pattern of violent displacement of natives. Totally believable. Just like the tunnels that Israel supposedly found under Gaza’s hospital miraculously turning out to be in Sweden. Or the found list of terrorists named “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.”
Kill the mosquito on the wall with a bazuka, but only if the wall is in Gaza. I mean, by Israeli standards, if a bank robber holds an innocent customer hostage at gunpoint, the question is not whether the police should risk accidentally killing the hostage to get the bank robber. The question is simply: is the bank located inside Gaza? If yes, then blood is cheap: blow up the entire neighborhood where the bank is located, as that would hopefully kill the bank robber too. If the bank is not located in Gaza … maybe then let’s think of a more precise Plan B.
So what now?
These glaring examples of biased word choice are very widespread in mainstream discourse. There are other such examples, too, such as conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism (we Muslims are staunchly against the racist ideology of Zionism, but not racist against Jews as a people). So what should we do in the face of this language war?
Let’s watch our own words — taking control of our narrative starts with owning our vocabulary. Say “genocide”, not “Israel-Hamas war”. “Massacre”, not “conflict”. “Ethnic cleansing”, not “evacuation”. “Genocide enabler”, not merely “extremely pro-Israeli racist”.
Our narrative, our word choice. Join the great trend of calling the so-called IDF, the “Israeli Defense Forces” for what they really are — the IOF, the “Israeli Occupation Forces”. Start using the increasingly common phrase, “settler violence”. Say “the settler colony of Israel”, not the “state of Israel”. “Ceasefire”, not “humanitarian pause”. On that last one, remember that a ceasefire is only a temporary reduction in the brutal occupation terror. We must work to completely liberate our oppressed family of Palestinians.
Change the words to change the perspective. Not “Palestinians being massacred”, but “my people being massacred”. Not their blood, but my blood, being spilled. My brothers and sisters desperately scrounging for food and safety. My children being killed. My children crying. Not “their” children. Our children. My own children. Your very own children.
Call a spade a spade.
Two simple and quick resources:
Awesome Instagram reel on Palestine Terminology to use: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cyk4a9or9nC
The Palestine Academy teaches about the history and terminology of Palestine (there’s a one-pager too): https://www.thepalestineacademy.com/