A word (or many) on language

Umm A returns after climbing through barbed wire to follow the border police jeep which carried her husband, arrested as he tried to access his olive trees

This should have come earlier.

I'd like to pause for a minute and talk about how I talk. Why I use the words I use and the tensions and implications in the use of those words. This is an ongoing conversation I have with myself as I struggle to be both honest and accessible in writing about my time here. So now I'm gonna go all wordy and honest and hopefully not too inaccessible.

How do I tell you where I am living?

Do I say that I am living in the West Bank, a banal identification that while not a lie very much overlooks the reality of the occupation of the Palestinian people? Do I mention the “occupation” and say the Occupied West Bank, Occupied Territories or Occupied Palestine? Personally, I think that “occupied” must preface any indication of geographic location here, it is after all the defining feature of people’s day-to-day existence. However, I worry if I say “occupied” some readers, maybe not you open minded folks interested in my blog, but others, will dismiss me out of hand as someone writing emotionally rather then factually, which frustratingly is exactly the opposite of my contradiction. I worry that “occupied” will raise readers emotions distracting them from the facts at hand. But I think regardless of the potential for emotional involvement, in the end, I have to use “occupied” because otherwise I spiral down a path of vagueness/news-speak/“political correctness” that obscures the very reality I hope to explore.

So now, finally, I can take the quotations away, occupied. Occupied what, Occupied West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories? Both these designations muddle the scope of the occupation to the West Bank and Gaza, implying that if Israel pulls out of these places then the occupation will cease to exist, while simultaneously denying the historical existence of Palestine. It; a) doesn’t address the tension over the geographic contiguity of the West Bank itself, pre/post 1967 and pre/post the separation wall and b) accepts the legitimacy of a state, Israel, based on the forceful displacement of the indigenous people and continued abuse of individual and group rights in an effort to maintain a religious majority/supremacy in said state. Because I believe in the equal rights of every single individual, as a member of a community living within the borders of the place I’m trying to name the only conclusion is that the creation of two states is inherently flawed both justly and practically. More on that loaded run-on sentence later.

To simply say Occupied Palestine is appropriate and yet possibly too obscure for an audience who doesn’t have this narrative, that you have just been forced to read, running through their heads at all times. It is also possibly alienating, “you deny the legitimacy of the state of Israel!?” “Anti-Semitic” “naïve” “fool”, . But unfortunately any conversation about this topic will be, by its nature, alienating to some. Not surprising, considering that the facts on the ground are alienating to many.

So here I am in the West Bank of Occupied Palestine struggling with language, a privilege as others struggle for their lives.


Her mother in-law helps her back through the barbed wire fence separating "Israel" from the West Bank and Umm A's family from their land