April 24, 2008

Words Matter

It has long been my opinion that what we call things makes a difference in the way we see them. The Arab world has long understood this and has taken the liberty of establishing a vocabulary that has been adopted by US and western news media, and even many if not most American Jews. In my view we need to be careful of how we use this vocabulary.

For example:

West Bank: This is the name the King of Transjordan gave to Judea and Samaria when he conquered the territory in 1948. It has no historical meaning but the world continues to use it. The proper terms are Judea and Samaria referring to the biblical names of the territories.

Palestinians or Palestinian people: This term was first used to describe Jewish volunteers in the British army during WW I. It was co-opted by Yasir Arafat in 1964 and used to describe a fictitious lineage between the ancient Canaanites and the modern Arabs who live in the disputed territories. The proper terms is the Arabs of Judea and Samaria.

Occupied territory: This term is often used by the Arabs to describe Judea and Samaria. The proper term is disputed territory or more recently liberated territory. This territory was conquered by the Transjordanians and Egyptians in 1948 with the help of the Syrians, the Saudis and the Iraqis. It was made completely Judenrein, i.e. free of Jews during the period from 1949 -1967 and was liberated by the IDF in 1967. Any compromise over the ownership of the disputed territory must be by mutual agreement, not by Arab fiat.

Al Quds: Although this hasn’t caught on in America it is the Arab name for Jerusalem, which they also think they own.

Settlers: This generic term used to mean people willing to sink roots in virgin land. Now it is a pejorative for Jews who have built towns and villages on disputed land. The connotation is of grasping Jews who take what isn’t theirs.

Apartheid: The term used in South Africa to describe the forced separation of black and whites according to race. The Arabs of Israel including those of Judea and Samaria enjoy freedoms unheard anywhere in the Arab world and are not separated by race or religion. The separation barriers are to keep bombers out, not for any racial purpose. To be accused of racial segregation by people who will not permit Jews to live among them is pure hypocrisy. The penalty for an Arab to sell land to a Jew in Judea is death by order of the PA.

When Jews build communities in Judea or Samaria the Arabs claim that they own the land and it must be part of their state to come. Therefore any Jewish use of the land is to divide it, hence the apartheid reference. This also gave rise to the phrase “viable and contiguous” state. This implies that anything less that all of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza district would be unviable. Contiguous is interesting since it implies a road from Gaza to Judea, cutting Israel in half.

By the way, complaints have been registered because the extension of Jewish activities east from Jerusalem makes travel from Samaria into Judea time consuming and inconvenient. To this I would ask, has anyone ever driven from Tiberias to Jerusalem in rush hour? The time it takes to avoid the disputed territory is enormous, so I have no patience for Arab complaints about traffic patterns in Judea and Samaria.

That’s my vocabulary. Feel free to add names or phrases I’ve forgotten, and try to get used to the terms that are respectful of Jewish interests in the region.

Posted by Fred @ 12:53 pm | 9 Comments »

9 Responses to Words Matter

  1. Pingback: Maggie's Notebook

  2. sunstartmf33 says:

    Actually, “PALESTINE” was a Roman map used to replace the State of Israel after the final Jewish exile in 135 A.D.

    Something Israel should think about before making a false peace with the Pope or American leaders should re-think when Catholic Churches offer sanctuaries to illegal immigrants, while kicking the homeless off Cardinal Mahoney’s sidewalks in front of his nice 12-story office building in mid-Wilshire!

    The U.N. partition map is in violation of the Torah map and the world community is using the “Roman Map” in the same spirit the Romans did, thus offending the God of Israel by replacing HIS WILL with HUMAN “GOOD” WILL. Human “good” will cannot replace God’s Will, for HIS COVENANT WITH ISRAEL IS EVERLASTING – provided that Israel OBEYS His Will, rather than the U.N. will.

  3. sunstartmf33 says:

    And if you want to go back BEFORE the Roman Map of “Palestine,” you have the PHILISTINES, who were at war with Israel until KING DAVID drove them out and re-established the ark of God’s Covenant in Jerusalem. When God’s Law was brought back and the Ten Commandments were at the center of the Temple Mount, King Solomon’s kingdom was established.

    Until Israel puts the Ten Commandments back on God’s Holy Mountain, the abomination that is there now, will continue its desolation.

  4. Pingback: Today’s Vocab Lesson « Wolf Pangloss

  5. Kim Hartveld says:

    Maybe slightly off topic, but why don’t we call ‘Islam’ by its proper English equivalent, ‘Submission’?
    Or ‘Surrender’, for those who are still unclear about the true character of this ‘religion’.

  6. sunstartmf33 says:

    No, Islam means “Submission to Allah,” and we all know that the God of Israel never appeared to Muhammad, nor said one word of the Koran to anyone. Allah is a false god and Muhammad a false prophet and Islam a lie.

    In reality, “submission to Allah” is “submission to Satan,” because it was the devil who appeared to Muhammad while he had his convulsions. It is a historical fact that when Muhammad claimed a visitation from Allah or an angel, he was thrown into convulsions, a sure sign of demon possession.

    Also, here is the very last chapter of the Koran:

    Surah 6:6 says—“Don’t they see how many of those before them We did destroy?–Generations We had established on the earth, in strength such as We have not given to you—for whom we poured out rain from the skies in abundance, and gave streams flowing beneath their (feet): Yet for their sins We destroyed them, and raised in their wake fresh generations (To succeed them).”
    The question is: Who are ‘We’? Throughout the whole Koran we see the pronoun ‘We’ used several times.
    WE sent down the Koran from Allah; WE gave Abraham and Moses the Torah; WE gave Jesus the Gospel. It seems almost as if ‘WE’ is a schizophrenic mind possessed by a demon. Muhammad seemed to have multiple personalities.
    The last six verses of the Koran talk about demons whispering to mankind with deception and the demon inside of Muhammad’s religion taught that disbelievers in Allah were deceived.
    The language of ‘WE’ throughout the Koran sounds similar to the language used in Luke 4:33-34 which says—“In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, ‘Ha! What do you want with US, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy US?”
    The symptoms of Muhammad being thrown into convulsions and seeing visions during those convulsions sounds a lot like Matthew 17:15 where the symptoms of a young boy possessed by a demon is described: “He has seizures and is suffering greatly.”
    In Mark 5:9 Jesus had already told an evil spirit to come out of a man who was possessed and he inquired as to what name the demon had and the demon’s response was, “My name is Legion, for WE are many.”
    When we read about the symptoms that demon possessed men suffered in the Gospels, Muhammad seems to have suffered the same symptoms, and we know, based upon the Scriptures of the Holy Bible, that the language of the Koran comes from an unclean, anti-Christ spirit.
    Who knows if it wasn’t LEGION who had appeared to Muhammad? Who knows what demons do when they are released from the Abyss? Revelation tells us that Satan and his angels are hurled to earth, filled with fury as their time is short (Revelation 12:12).
    Try to step into the mind of the devil, God’s Archenemy and imagine what kind of plan he would use to try to destroy God’s Creation?
    What would the devil and the fallen angels do in their final war against the God of Israel?
    All religious paths outside of John 14 do not lead to the God of Israel, but to the devil who deceived us and created these false religions.
    Who knows if the last verse of the Qur’an wasn’t a whispering from an evil spirit who was giving a testimony about his own kind?
    Muhammad demonstrated demonic possession because he often fell to the ground in a convulsion and perspiration covered his head. He attributed his gray hairs to these experiences and whenever he was asked to describe the process of his visions he answered that the recitations of the Koran existed in heaven and that one piece at a time was communicated to him, mostly by Gabriel. The sounds he heard while having these visions was a ringing sound like a bell.
    Although Muhammad could not read or write, he dictated this new religion to scribes who wrote down what he said word for word. Several fragments of what Muhammad said were scattered all over Arabia and not put into any immediate chronological order. No collection of these fragments were compiled together during the life of Muhammad. Several of his followers memorized his recitations
    It wasn’t until the year 633 A.D. that Abu Bekr commanded Zaid ibn Thatit to search for all the fragments of the Koran and put them together into one book.
    Several copies of Zaid’s book, created in 651 A.D., 17 years after Muhammad’s death, were made, but none of them had any vowels.

    Therefore, Kim Hartveld, “SUBMISSION TO ALLAH,” is submission to Satan and all people who love the God of Israel know that Muslims bow before the devil.

  7. I have been stressing this both on our radio show, Middle East Radio Forum, in articles, and in my forthcoming book “Middle East Rules of Thumb.” Contained therein is the following “War of Words” chart, which I urge all to refer to and use:
    THE WAR OF WORDS
    © 2004. Seventh revision 2007. Dr. S. Carol. All rights reserved.
    In the propaganda war between the Arabs and Israel it is essential that one does not fall into the trap of using pro-Arab vocabulary when speaking about history and/or current events. (excuse the two separate lists, as I could not place them in the submission form so that they would be side by side)
    WHAT THE ARABS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS SAY
    “Palestinian – Israeli Conflict”
    “Creation of the state of Israel”
    “anti-Zionist” and “anti-Zionism”
    “Greater Israel”
    “Occupied territories”
    “Palestine”
    Palestinians
    Al Quds
    Nablus
    Umm Rashrash
    “The West Bank”
    “settlers”
    “settlements”
    “illegal outposts”
    ‘the Wall”
    “militants, guerrillas, freedom fighters”
    “shaheed” (martyr)
    “The Nakhba (The Disaster)”
    “The October (Ramadan) War 1973”
    The Second (“Al Aqsa”) Intifada
    “The Wailing Wall”
    IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces)

    WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY AND IS HISTORICALLY CORRECT
    Arab-Muslim war against Israel and the Jewish people; and
    the Israeli frontline in the war of Islamofascism against the West
    Re-establishment of a sovereign Israel
    Misojudaic and misojudaism (hatred of Jews)
    Land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael
    Disputed territories
    Land of Israel
    Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza
    Jerusalem
    Shchem
    Eilat
    Judea and Samaria
    residents
    communities or towns and villages
    unauthorized housing
    the Security barrier
    terrorists, assassins, murderers
    suicide murderer
    Outcome of Arab aggression
    (The Israeli War of Independence)
    The Yom Kippur War 1973
    The Oslo War
    The Western Wall of the Temple Mount
    IDF (Israeli Defense Force)

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