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The UN's Palestine Language

(Gatestone Institute) A.J. Caschetta - In recent years the UN's greatest achievements against the Jewish state have been rhetorical. By controlling the language of the Palestinian-Israel conflict, the UN has skewed the narrative falsely against Israel, tainting the world's perception of the conflict. UN documents regularly refer to "occupied Palestinian territory" (especially in the "West Bank") as being stolen by Jewish "settlement activity." All four UN terms - "Palestine," "occupation," "West Bank," and "settlement" - are misleading. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians at any time in history. Until recently, there have never been a people or a culture known as "Palestinian" distinct from "Arab." The Arabs who lived in UN-mandated Palestine rejected UN Resolution 181 in 1947 and turned down statehood. For millennia the territory termed "West Bank" was called Judea and Samaria. Most Palestinians in Judea and Samaria live under the governance of the Palestinian Authority. Referring to this territory as the "occupied West Bank," is an unnecessary concession to the Palestinian narrative. Saying that Jews are "occupying" Judea is as nonsensical as saying Arabs are "occupying" Arabia. The term "settlement" evokes imagery of white European settlers encroaching on the territories of red, brown and black peoples, connoting colonialism, and insinuating Israeli theft of "Palestine." What Israelis call Judea and Samaria, and Palestinians call the West Bank, are "disputed territories" to anyone claiming a modicum of neutrality. The writer is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and a senior lecturer at Rochester Institute of Technology.
2016-12-02 00:00:00
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