PA Playbook: Official PA terminology guide.

PA Playbook: Official PA terminology guide.(PalWatch).By by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik.The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information has published a book instructing Palestinians which words to use and calling to replace "the Israeli and American dissemination of poisoned terms." The book, which is called Terminology in Media, Culture and Politics, includes a chart with the "poisoned terms" to be replaced by Palestinian terms.


This book and the chosen terms are significant as they officially and accurately reflect PA beliefs, policies and ideologies. As Palestinian Media Watch has documented for years, when speaking to its own people the PA adamantly denies Israel's right to exist and glorifies the murder of Israelis and Jews, including civilians, as heroic "resistance." This terminology guide issued by the PA reiterates the official PA positions that foreign governments and the international media often don't understand, deny, or ignore.


PA denies Israel's right to exist - reflected in terminology
The PA does not recognize Israel's right to exist. Accordingly, the introduction to the PA Ministry of Information's book stresses that Palestinians must avoid language that recognizes Israel's existence as "natural." Using the Israeli terminology:
"turns the essence of the Zionist endeavor (i.e., Israeli statehood) from a racist, colonialist endeavor into an endeavor of self-definition and independence for the Jewish People."


Palestinians are encouraged to use terms that indicate that Israel is the result of "a racist, colonialist endeavor," and the book instructs Palestinians never to use the name "Israel" alone but instead to use the term "Israeli colonialism." To use "Israel" by itself is wrong, according to the PA, because it "describes Israel as a natural state."


Killing Israeli civilians is not terror but "resistance"
A second fundamental of PA ideology is to refuse to accept that Palestinian attacks that kill Israelis, including suicide bombings against civilians, are terror.
The PA refuses to recognize Israel's fight against Palestinian terror as self-defense. Through its terminology, it attempts to delegitimize Israeli security structures and defense measures by replacing the following terms.

The PA refuses to refer to Israel's Arab citizens as 'Israeli Arabs' or 'Arab Israelis'. The Ministry of Information writes: "The alternative term for 'Israeli Arabs' is 'the Palestinian people in the '48 territories.'"

The term "'48 territories" is another Palestinian Authority euphemism intended to deny recognition of Israel and is used to replace all references to land in Israel. The term "'48 territories" is actually a shortened term for the full expression used by the PA: "the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948."

Part of the PA's denial of Israel's right to exist includes its refusal to acknowledge thousands of years of Jewish history and culture in the Land of Israel. The book includes Palestinian expressions that should be used to replace Israeli terminology related to history and tradition:

This book issued by the PA Ministry of Information is significant because it states and confirms in an official PA document what Palestinian Media Watch has been documenting for years: that the PA terminology that is used by PA leaders and their controlled media is significant and carefully chosen and reflects PA opinions and policy.Read the full story here.