Why we need to retire the term ‘pro-Palestinian’

A July 5 CNN nonfiction reported connected 3 incidents successful Melbourne, Australia: attempted arson astatine a synagogue, a confrontation astatine a edifice and 3 cars acceptable connected occurrence adjacent a business. The portion was scant connected the details of the alleged crimes and the identities of the perpetrators, but it did clarify that the concern “has been targeted by pro-Palestine protesters successful the past”.

That the writer chose to conflate activism successful enactment of the Palestinian origin with convulsive acts that are debased connected facts and precocious connected conjecture is indicative of however Western media person travel to operate. Media reports are progressively linking by default acts of aggression to activism they telephone “pro-Palestinian”.

Here are much examples: Before his sanction was released, we learned that a gunman shouted, “Free, escaped Palestine,” successful a shooting rampage that killed 2 Israeli embassy unit members extracurricular the Capital Jewish Museum successful Washington, DC, connected May 21. Reports linked the fishy to what quality outlets described arsenic “pro-Palestinian” advocacy.

When connected June 1 an Egyptian nationalist attacked demonstrators voicing enactment of Israel successful Colorado, the media besides linked the incidental to “pro-Palestinian protests”.

Softly landing connected the word “pro-Palestinian” allows reporters to conscionable editorial standards for brevity. But brevity is not a fixed journalistic value. Accurately informing the nationalist is.

The connection “pro-Palestinian” has go governmental shorthand for a well-worn and misleading coupling: Palestinian advocacy and violence. Stripped of captious context, the word offers quality consumers a reductive mentation – a convulsive enactment distilled and opaquely linked to “Palestinian” entities arsenic imagined and understood done a constrictive and distorted lens.

A nonaccomplishment to prosecute with contexts is not neutral omission. Rather, it is an affront to cognition processes and a bow to powerfulness structures that govern mainstream journalistic storytelling.

What historical, taste and spiritual claims bash Palestinians make? Most quality consumers successful the West are unprepared to reply this question. In a closed accusation ecology, they seldom brushwood these claims successful afloat – oregon astatine all.

Like galore who person followed the humanities arc of each things Palestine oregon reported connected it, I’ve utilized the word pro-Palestinian myself. It felt functional astatine the time: concise and seemingly understood.

Now, however, that shorthand misleads. Any connection that is prefaced by “pro-” demands honorable re-examination. When circumstances displacement and caller meanings emerge, the hyphenation clanks arsenic anachronistic. We’re successful 1 of those moments – a condition that is the epicentre of planetary opprobrium, humanitarian illness and spectacular motivation failure.

To picture activism and peaceful protests against the genocidal unit successful Gaza arsenic “pro-Palestinian” is disparaging. Opposing the strategical starvation of a trapped colonisation is hardly pro-Palestinian. It is pro-humanity.

Is it “pro-Palestinian” to telephone for the extremity of unit that has claimed the lives of much than 18,000 children? Is it “pro-Palestinian” to telephone for the extremity of starvation that has killed dozens of children and elderly? Is it “pro-Palestinian” to explicit outrage astatine Gaza parents forced to transportation body parts of their children in integrative bags?

The word “pro-Palestinian” operates wrong a mendacious linguistic economy. It flattens a grossly unequal world into a communicative of competing sides arsenic if an occupied, bombarded and displaced radical were an adjacent broadside to 1 of the astir precocious armies successful the world.

Gaza is not a side. Gaza is, arsenic 1 UNICEF authoritative enactment it, a “graveyard for children”. It is simply a spot wherever journalists are killed for bearing witness, wherever hospitals are obliterated and universities reduced to rubble, wherever the planetary assemblage is failing to uphold minimal standards of quality rights.

In an epoch of impatience with rigour, “pro-Palestinian” is the rhetorical crutch that satisfies the manufactured request for contiguous alignment (fandom) without captious thought. It permits bad-faith actors to stigmatise dissent, disregard motivation clarity and delegitimise outrage.

To call Elias Rodriguez, who carried retired the shooting successful Washington, DC, a “pro-Palestinian” shooter is a framing instrumentality that invites readers to construe words of Palestinian solidarity arsenic imaginable precursors to violence. It encourages institutions, including universities, to conflate advocacy with extremism and enactment a chill connected escaped look connected campus.

Obfuscations successful the conventions of reportage, euphemism oregon rhetorical hedging are the past things we request successful this catastrophic moment. What’s needed is clarity and precision.

Let america effort thing radical: Let america accidental what we mean. When radical protestation the demolition of lineage and tillage in Gaza, they are not “taking a side” successful immoderate abstract pro-and-con debate. They are affirming the worth of life. They are rejecting the thought that 1 people’s suffering indispensable stay invisible for another’s comfort.

If radical are advocating for quality rights, past accidental so. If they judge that Palestinian beingness is worthy of dignity, information and memory, accidental so.

And if they are calling for the “liberation” of Palestine and usage phrases similar “free Palestine” – phrases charged with decades of political, humanities and affectional value – that excessively deserves clarity and context. Liberation and state successful astir of these calls bash not connote unit but a request for state from occupation, siege, starvation, statelessness, and sidesplitting and imprisonment with impunity.

Collapsing these divers expressions into a vague statement similar “pro-Palestinian” blurs world and deepens nationalist misunderstanding.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.