Fawaz Turki, writing in the Saudi Arabian a-Sharq al-Awsat, detailed the Arab view of Israeli history as part of an article on how language, in is opinion, has been manipulated by the Israelis. ?What do you do when Israel mounts an assault, as equally horrific as the one in Palestine in recent weeks, against language?? the author asks, ?Is there not ? and if not, should there not be ? a kind of Semantic Rights Watch that documents the acts of those who pollute language in order to give voice and justification to their savageries, or when they turn verbal discourse upside down???
According to Turki, ?For upward of 50 years, Zionist leaders have, through the use of cunningly sophisticated rhetoric, convinced the world that ?tiny Israel? (remember that engagingly cute phrase from the 1950s and 60s?) had been the victim of five wars of aggression mounted against it by Arabs hellbent on ?destroying? it (the apocalyptic term ?obliterating it? was an alternate) and driving its denizens ?into the sea.?? It is unclear why the author would deny that the Arabs seek to eliminate Israel, while the rest of the article was devoted to explaining what the author evidently sees as the illegitimacy of the very existence of the Jewish state (?Israel?s war of conquest in 1948 is uniformly referred to as ?the war of independence,? as if the Zionist movement were a national liberation movement not unlike those in the Third War that had struggled against colonialism, not a movement waged against a little native people aimed at disenfranchising them of their land, their home and their name.?). Furthermore, the a-Sharq article admitted that the Arab-Jewish war of 1948 was initiated by the Arabs, but it failed to provide a reason why the Arabs would mount a war against the newly declared Jewish state, if not to ?obliterate? it.
After 1948, however, according to the Saudi newspaper, none of the Arab-Israeli wars were initiated by the Arab states. Here is the Arab version of history: ?The Suez War, 1956, and the June War, 1967, were both started by Israel, the one in collusion with then colonial Britain and France, and the other in search of lebensraum. In the October War, 1973, no one attacked Israel, or got anywhere near it. The Egyptian Army assaulted foreign occupation forces ensconced in Egyptian national territory in Sinai, and the Syrian Army, in like manner, attacked foreign occupation forces equally ensconced in Syrian national territory in the Golan Heights. And we all know of what has come to be known as ?Sharon?s war? in Lebanon in 1982, an unprovoked invasion of the territory of a neighboring sovereign nation.? Not just historical accuracy, but the very basis of Jewish sovereignty is also delegitimized in the a-Sharq al-Awsat article, ?Colonizing occupied land is ?settlement activity.? Palestinians living in Israel, remnants of their community that was not driven out in 1948, are ?Israeli Arabs.? (See? Call a Palestinian an Israeli Arab and who is to know that he is the original native son?)??
Rather than an Arab campaign to eliminate the State of Israel, wrote Turki, ?That is what has been happening all these years ? an immense outpouring of precise, serviceable words to conceal the deception, the militarism and the race arrogance of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine.?
Referring to recent events, and, again, ignoring context, Fawaz Turki wrote against what he sees as a double standard, ?Israel legitimately ?buys? arms from the US, but Palestine surreptitiously ?smuggles? them from Iran. Israel defends itself against ?the terrorist infrastructure,? but Palestinians, who barely possess a wet match, want to burn Israel down to the ground?. And of course, there was the Israeli ?incursion? into Palestine recently, a term connoting the benign image of a man taking a walk in the park?. When you hear Israeli Army spokesmen justifying what they did in Jenin, among other places ? but Jenin in particular ? you know that language is being used to run hell??
As for the future, the a-Sharq article declared, ?The plan that Israel today has on hold to expel the entire Palestinian population from the West Bank and Gaza (a plan chillingly given all the more credence with Effi Eitam, one of its most ardent advocates, joining Sharon?s government recently) is called ?transfer,? not ethnic cleansing or expulsion.?
?And, Oh yes,? Turki concluded, ?of course. Sharon is a man of peace. Sure, George. Whatever.?
According to Turki, ?For upward of 50 years, Zionist leaders have, through the use of cunningly sophisticated rhetoric, convinced the world that ?tiny Israel? (remember that engagingly cute phrase from the 1950s and 60s?) had been the victim of five wars of aggression mounted against it by Arabs hellbent on ?destroying? it (the apocalyptic term ?obliterating it? was an alternate) and driving its denizens ?into the sea.?? It is unclear why the author would deny that the Arabs seek to eliminate Israel, while the rest of the article was devoted to explaining what the author evidently sees as the illegitimacy of the very existence of the Jewish state (?Israel?s war of conquest in 1948 is uniformly referred to as ?the war of independence,? as if the Zionist movement were a national liberation movement not unlike those in the Third War that had struggled against colonialism, not a movement waged against a little native people aimed at disenfranchising them of their land, their home and their name.?). Furthermore, the a-Sharq article admitted that the Arab-Jewish war of 1948 was initiated by the Arabs, but it failed to provide a reason why the Arabs would mount a war against the newly declared Jewish state, if not to ?obliterate? it.
After 1948, however, according to the Saudi newspaper, none of the Arab-Israeli wars were initiated by the Arab states. Here is the Arab version of history: ?The Suez War, 1956, and the June War, 1967, were both started by Israel, the one in collusion with then colonial Britain and France, and the other in search of lebensraum. In the October War, 1973, no one attacked Israel, or got anywhere near it. The Egyptian Army assaulted foreign occupation forces ensconced in Egyptian national territory in Sinai, and the Syrian Army, in like manner, attacked foreign occupation forces equally ensconced in Syrian national territory in the Golan Heights. And we all know of what has come to be known as ?Sharon?s war? in Lebanon in 1982, an unprovoked invasion of the territory of a neighboring sovereign nation.? Not just historical accuracy, but the very basis of Jewish sovereignty is also delegitimized in the a-Sharq al-Awsat article, ?Colonizing occupied land is ?settlement activity.? Palestinians living in Israel, remnants of their community that was not driven out in 1948, are ?Israeli Arabs.? (See? Call a Palestinian an Israeli Arab and who is to know that he is the original native son?)??
Rather than an Arab campaign to eliminate the State of Israel, wrote Turki, ?That is what has been happening all these years ? an immense outpouring of precise, serviceable words to conceal the deception, the militarism and the race arrogance of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine.?
Referring to recent events, and, again, ignoring context, Fawaz Turki wrote against what he sees as a double standard, ?Israel legitimately ?buys? arms from the US, but Palestine surreptitiously ?smuggles? them from Iran. Israel defends itself against ?the terrorist infrastructure,? but Palestinians, who barely possess a wet match, want to burn Israel down to the ground?. And of course, there was the Israeli ?incursion? into Palestine recently, a term connoting the benign image of a man taking a walk in the park?. When you hear Israeli Army spokesmen justifying what they did in Jenin, among other places ? but Jenin in particular ? you know that language is being used to run hell??
As for the future, the a-Sharq article declared, ?The plan that Israel today has on hold to expel the entire Palestinian population from the West Bank and Gaza (a plan chillingly given all the more credence with Effi Eitam, one of its most ardent advocates, joining Sharon?s government recently) is called ?transfer,? not ethnic cleansing or expulsion.?
?And, Oh yes,? Turki concluded, ?of course. Sharon is a man of peace. Sure, George. Whatever.?