JERUSALEM — As militants in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli Air Force traded a hail of rockets and bombs last week, a Twitter notification popped up on my screen: “We applaud @rudoren for not using the word ‘respond’ when describing Palestinian retaliation to Israeli violence.”
I welcome the rare applause on social media. But in this battle context, is there such a big difference between “respond” and “retaliate”?
Merriam-Webster’s online thesaurus lists them as related words. Its dictionary defines “respond” as “to do something as a reaction to something that has happened or been done.” Indeed: The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad sent scores of rockets into southern Israel after Israeli troops killed three of its members (Israel said the three fired a mortar at its troops; the Palestinians said that was because they were on the Gaza side of the border fence).
But a third Merriam definition for respond is “a good or desired reaction,” whereas “retaliate” is “to do something bad to someone who has hurt you.” That is a more precise description of the rocket attacks — and of the Israeli airstrikes that followed. Still, in a news story involving reactions to reactions to reactions, using both terms can make for smoother writing — and reading.
This is part of what I have come to call “conflict code”: words whose plain English meanings are politicized, distorted or undermined in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, which is much more a clash of narratives than a tussle over territory. In November, the International Press Institute issued “Use With Care,” a guide to more than 75 “alternative words and phrases” for “loaded language” on this beat.
“There are words that can cause some audiences to simply shut down and stop listening,” the preface reads. “We all understand that words can only mediate reality, not define it. But words are also powerful, and they play a major role in shaping our consciousness and perceptions.”
It’s not just about journalism. As Secretary of State John Kerry tries to push forward a framework for a peace agreement this month, the precise language of the document may determine whether talks continue or break down.
For example, will it call for “a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem” or “East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital”? The first is anathema to Palestinians, conjuring an isolated headquarters in a single neighborhood. The second alarms the 200,000 Israeli Jews living in East Jerusalem territory seized in 1967 and later annexed (in what they call “neighborhoods” and most of the world sees as “settlements”).
With many parsing every word about this region, the danger is writing so defensively — to avoid skewering by one side or the other — that regular readers have to suffer through stilted sentences and tit-for-tat terminology.
Shortly after I arrived in Jerusalem, I got scolded for describing the West Bank city of Hebron as “hotly disputed.” Turns out “disputed” is conflict code for less than “occupied” (later used in the article). I meant that Hebron is a particularly disputed part of the occupied West Bank, which it is. Now I call such places “contentious areas.”
Later, a United Nations spokesman was outraged at a reference to “Palestinian refugees and their descendants.” The agency that serves them considers all as “refugees” with equal claims.
But more than 65 years later, their numbers having swelled to five million from the hundreds of thousands who (choose your potentially offending verb here: “were expelled” or “fled”), “and their descendants” makes more sense to those not steeped in conflict code.
Last week, I got an email challenging my mention of the “border” between Israel and Gaza. No, it is not an internationally recognized border separating sovereign states. But there is a fence. They stamp passports at the crossing. I think readers understand.
As for that tweet applauding me, its author, @IsraelFirsters, seems to be a parody feed irreverently challenging the loaded language — and underlying narratives — of partisans in the conflict.
I sent a message to find out more, but have not yet received a response (or retaliation).
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