Laundering words, omitting words, both are lies

About Rev. Nain Ateek's article, "The laundering of words and the oppression of Palestinians."

CHURCHandWORLD linked yesterday, October 3, to a pdf file from the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem. The file was the center’s publication, Cornerstone, summer edition 2009, the article was The laundering of words and the oppression of Palestinians.

The article is by Rev. Nain Ateek the Director of Sabeel. His article was pointing to another article by Gideon Levy, “The Factory of Words.”

Ateek uses the epistle of James to remind his readers that human words are capable of great evil. And they are. Some words become evil, as Ateek points out, because they are replacement words that tend to cover the reality of events. They whitewash and so become lies.

But there are other ways to use words to mislead and make lies. That is by omitting words, a whole string of words such as sentences and paragraphs. That is a way to lie about history and morality and even Christianity.

Ateek writes, “From the beginning of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the propaganda machine of the state of Israel has coined words, created myths, produced stereotypes, and crafted propaganda tools in order to justify and legitimize the Zionist narrative, while at the same time, it has managed to cast doubt upon and negate the Palestinian narrative.”

Note that Ateek says the propaganda started from the beginning of the Palestinian-Israel conflict. So when one reads this and knows the beginning history of the conflict, and yes, it goes back to the time of the Holocaust, but is mainly centered around 1947-1948, then one knows that vast amounts of words have been erased or omitted from the article. And only innuendo remains.

Ateek goes on to suggest that Israel from the beginning has smeared the Palestinians as warmongers and “innately violent.” But this is a double lie.

Israel’s beginning narrative is its conflict not so much with the Palestinians; it was that also, but mainly with at least five Arab nations who at that time and even today have misused the Palestinians. So the Israeli beginning narrative revolves mainly around the attack by Syria, Egypt, Jordan and other Arab nations of their new State. And that narrative does not hold that the Palestinians are “innately violent,” but rather that militant and radical Islam is innately violent.

And yes there was violence and destruction on both sides. That is the whole story without omitting words, or sentences or paragraphs.

Ateek implies that the Israelis are blaming the victim when they do not take responsibility for what the Palestinians call the Nakba (the catastrophe), that is the birth of the State of Israel and the displacement of about 750, 000 Palestinians from the new State.

Ateek sets up a simplified picture, insisting that while Israel denies any responsibility for the Palestinians leaving there is scientific and historical evidence coming from Jewish historians proving that movement of the Palestinians out of Israel was planned by the “Zionist leaders.” He cites both Benny Morris and Pappe.

But what does Morris say in his book, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War:

“the refugee problem was created by the war—which the Arabs had launched … And it was that war that propelled most of these displaced out of their houses and into refugeedom. Most fled when their villages and towns came under Jewish attack or out of fear of future attack. They wished to move out of harm’s way. … Most of the displaced likely expected to return to their homes within weeks or months, on the coattails of victorious Arab armies or on the back of UN decision or Great Power intervention."

Morris also wrote, after writing about any ideas that the Zionist leadership may have had about expulsion, “Nonetheless, transfer or expulsion was never adopted by the Zionist movement or its main political groupings as official policy at any state of the movement’s evolution—not even in the 1948 War.”[1]

Both Pappe and Morris are part of what is called the New Historians of Israel. Yet Morris has criticized Pappe’s historical accounts. Several other Jewish historians have as well. Historian Efraim Karsh quotes him in a review of his book, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples,

Pappe states, “My bias is apparent despite the desire of my peers that I stick to facts and the "truth" when reconstructing past realities. I view any such construction as vain and presumptuous. This book is written by one who admits compassion for the colonized not the colonizer; who sympathizes with the occupied not the occupiers.”

Ateek uses the verse, “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) He writes that Sabeel’s objective is, “to help discern the truth because the truth is capable of setting people free.” Yes, but Jesus was speaking of himself. He is the truth, the life and the way. He is the one that sets us all free. If we will let Him he will free us from telling lies either by laundering words or by omitting the words.

I will write about Gideon Levy’s article the following week.

[1] All of the Morris quotes are taken from, Alan Dershowitz, The Case Against Israel’s Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace, (John Wily & Sons 2008)