Why do Palestinians always “Die” in the Passive Mood, but Israelis are never named as the Killers?
Mohammed Samaana 06/05/2024
Belfast (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Since the creation of Israel on Palestinian land in 1948 and even before then, Israel used language as an effective weapon against the Palestinians. This contributed to enabling Israel to impose its narrative and to shape a public opinion largely willing to accept its version of history without considering the Palestinian prospective. This wouldn’t have been possible without biased media willing to abandon the basic ethos of journalism such as neutrality and impartiality. Instead, opinions were inserted in news stories as facts and ideology triumphed over professionalism.
One example of that is when the British daily newspaper, the Times published an article on May 11, 2024 about the death of the Israeli hostage, Nadav Popplewell, titled ‘British hostage dies amid fears of wider Gaza offensive.’ The title ignored two important facts. The first is that the announcement made by Hamas about the hostage said that he was killed by an Israeli air strike, which was corroborated by an article published by Al Jazeera. The Times concealed Israel’s culpability and spoke of this dual Israeli citizen solely as “British.” Failing to mention that he was an Israeli makes it sound as if he was captured because he was British.
It got worse with the Times’ subtitle which stated: “The death was announced as residents in northern Gaza and eastern Rafah were told to move to humanitarian areas, raising concerns of further military assaults.” The subtitle did not even mention that it was the Palestinians who were told to leave their homes, denying their entire existence. Instead, it referred to them as “residents” — as if they are renting their land and not its indigenous inhabitants. Additionally, the Times decided not to mention that it was Israel that ordered another displacement of the Palestinians, who had already been displaced several times during the past few months by Israel. This is consistent with the mainstream media pattern of using the passive mood and avoiding attributing any guilt or responsibility to Israel, as if the Palestinians are always the wrongdoers — never mind the Israeli occupation of their land and their 76 years destitution and suffering, which continues to this day.
AJ+ Video: “Do Palestinians “Die”? Or Are They “Killed”?
Since a number of Palestinians who were kidnapped by the Israeli army died recently in Israeli custody, including the head of orthopedic department at al-Shifa hospital, Dr Adnan Albursh, I searched the Times site for coverage of these deaths, some allegedly involving torture. I couldn’t find any. Of course, it is no surprise to see this bias in the Times, given that it is owned by Rupert Murdoch–whose vast media empire includes titles like the Times, and the Sun in the UK as well as the Wall Street Journal and Fox News in the US.
The language used by politicians is also carefully selected to send a message to the public and influence their way of thinking. For example, when the Baptist (Mamadani) hospital was bombed, killing almost 500 Palestinians, US president, Joe Biden said that it was done by “the other team.” Whether that was true or not, clearly Biden’s choice of words implied that the Palestinians are the others, not the ones we stand with. The otherness is a massive statement that dehumanizes those referred to as others. It means that their values, culture and beliefs are seen as incompatible with ours and therefore they are inferior humans and whatever happens to them is acceptable.
At the same time, Biden implied that Israel would never bomb a hospital. The Israeli government then went on to disable or destroy almost all of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip, as well as killing tens of thousands of Palestinians — mainly women and children — and openly denying the civilian population basic necessities such as food, water, medicine and fuel, even starving some Palestinian children to death. Yet Israel is the one on our team and who are like us in the West and we should support them no matter what they do. It also showed that Biden never learnt from his first mistake when repeated the Israeli lies about the beheading of babies which was soon debunked.
The list can go on. When Palestinians are killed by Israel, they are often referred to by the media as “people” instead of Palestinians and the passive “died” is used instead of “killed.” They do the opposite in the case of the Israelis, referring to “conflict” instead of occupation and terming Israeli-squatter-settlements on Palestinian land “disputed” rather than “illegal” (as they are according to the Geneva Convention). This pattern demonstrates the importance of scrutinizing and challenging the language used to deal with the Israeli occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.