I was beyond disappointed in class today when my professor mentioned the three ‘settlers’ who ‘died,’ referring to the three kidnapped teens in the West Bank. I’ve noticed that this language is common among those supporting Palestine. I missed the memo about using the term ‘settlers’ rather than ‘teenagers’ or ‘students’ when referring to the three young men who didn’t ‘die,’ but were murdered in the Occupied West Bank. This language strikes me as an attempt at implying, subconsciously, that they deserved it. Like when we use the term ‘terrorist’ to refer to anyone affiliated with Hamas. Just as I hate when murdered Palestinian children are referred to as ‘collateral damage’ or ‘an isolated incident,’ I would hate to see those supporting the Palestinian cause using the same disdainful and manipulative tactics that are so common to many right-wing Israelis and Zionists.

In the past few weeks these teenagers were murdered along with Mohammed Khdair and many Palestinian children before him. None of them deserved it and their parents are all suffering. 

I experienced the same shock, or I should say extreme disappointment, in a Beirut bookstore. Next to Arabic translations of Marquez, Coelho, and copies of Eat, Pray, Love, there was a book that caught my eye. It’s title: How Did the Jews Fabricate the Holocaust?! Books with titles like this are not at all rare. Streetside booksellers have copies of Mein Kampf and a Jordanian Hallmark-style store sells The Protocols of Zion at the front desk. What made my heart sink was the author’s name--Norman Finkelstein. It was then obvious that the title was an egregious mistranslation of Finkelstein’s most well-known book: The Holocaust Industry, which does not by any means claim that the Holocaust was fabricated (his own parents were survivors), but states that the memory of the Holocaust is being monopolized and exploited by those who want to justify the stealing and occupation of Palestinian land in the name of Israeli security.

In addition to the overt anti-Semitism present in this literature, it bothers me that those who are ‘anti-Israel’/‘pro-Palestine’ feel the need to manipulate the narrative and language to get their point across. We don’t have to use loaded terms to illustrate how horrible the Israeli government and military treats Palestinians. We don’t have to regress to this disgusting anti-Semitism to stand up against the crimes committed every day in the West Bank and Gaza. If we want to show who has it worse off we can just look to the facts and history of the conflict, no spin needed.