Gaza debate: why we must choose our words with care

Published: 8 October, 2010

• YAEL Kahn’s response to my letter confirms my point about the choice of words and analogy (Lessons from ghetto, October 1).

She is correct: I am not a casual observer. Like her I am also descended from Holocaust survivors.

I also have family in Israel. Maybe this is why I realise that language (especially the choice of words) and the analogies we use in making our arguments need to be carefully and sensitively chosen. 

Trying to convince readers that Israel is acting like Nazi Germany and denying the true nature of the Nazi extermination camps and ghettos shows how some choose and exploit with exaggerated language, analogy and emotions.

There is no comparison between what happened in the Nazi ghettos   and Israeli policy and actions today.

There are many who want to help Israel come to terms with the difficult truth about the nature of its birth (from the flames of the Shoah), its moral complexity, its tragic and often stupid mistakes. 

I am pleased that Yael and other fellow Jews campaign for Palestinian rights and justice. 

But in doing so, they appear to  deliberately  choose  language and analogy whose purpose is to create an environment and atmosphere where Israel will be seen as an illegitimate state.

This reminds me and many others of the language used in 1930s Germany, which eventually led to ghettos and extermination camps.

Ultimately, this type of discourse does not help Israeli or Palestinian.

Casual readers may like to note that Israeli newspapers like Haaretz and Yediot Ahranot carry frequent articles and op eds strongly critical of and denouncing Israeli government policy in Gaza, in the settlements and elsewhere.

They reflect the vibrancy, creativity, democracy and openness of Israel. Something so sadly lacking in the Hamas-led Gaza of today. 

CLAUDE COOPERSMITH
Gerrard Road, N1

• BY any dictionary definition, Gaza is a large ghetto, and the term “Nazi-like” was used because my letter (From Blitz to Gaza, September 10) was highlighting the similarities between the political situations in the 1930s and 40s and those of today.

I avoided citing the Warsaw Ghetto, as that was clearly a unique horror.

Mr Coopersmith’s letter (Ghetto talk provocative, September 24) is typical of the Zionist response to any non-Jew who dares to question the Israeli government’s Greater Israel policy.

Somewhere, there must be a highlighting of “anti-semitism”, and an implication that the writer is, at the least, someone who is indifferent to the past sufferings of the Jewish people, and should expect to be treated accordingly by the Jewish community.

It’s time the Zionists stopped using anti-semitic smear tactics and past Jewish suffering as propaganda, as tools in their quest for the dream of a Greater Israel.

TOM GOODING
Wharton Street, WC1