Monday, December 05, 2011

"Settlers"? Grotesque

In a post about her two recent visits to Hebron, Melanie Phillips notes of the Jewish residents there, in passem, that

It is also grotesque to call them 'settlers' as if they are colonising land with which they have no connection. Jews have lived in Hebron for thousands of years but have been repeatedly driven out, as in the 1929 pogrom when Arabs slaughtered 67 adults and children.

As I have insisted, the media-preferred term of "settlers" and "settlements" are selected with malice aforethought, to pejoratively influence the media consumer, the diplomat, the politician, the potential supporter. The terms corrupt. They alter reality. They misrepresent.

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