RFI (Radio France Internationale) has an interesting Mideast lexicon:
1) A settlement: un colon (a colony)
In today’s RFI broadcast, “L’avenir de Gaza devant la Knesset ” (“Gaza’s future in the Knesset”), we read of “colonies,” not “settlements”:
“les representants des colons” (the colonists’ spokesmen or representatives), “indemnisations versees aux colons” (payments doled out to colonists) l’indemnisation des colons” (payment to colonists), “l’evacuation de ces colonies” (evacuation of these colonies), “apres 35 annes de colonisation dans les Territoires palestiniens” (after 35 years of colonization in the Palestinian territories), “un mot d’ordre de greve generale a d’ailleurs ete lance dans les colonies … ” (meanwhile, the word was given for a general strike in the colonies … )
Obviously, “colon” for “settlement” represents a highly misleading translation, especially in post-colonial France. RFI has chosen this term for Israel’s West Bank and Gaza Strip towns over more neutral words like “un hameau” (a village) and “une habitation” (a more isolated village).
To delineate “outposts” in English, RFI uses the loaded “implantations,” literally settlements, but with the clear implication of something foreign and unbidden, as in “quatre petites implantations de Cisjordanie” (four small West Bank settlements) and “le demantelement des implantations” (the dismantling of the settlements).
2) West Bank: Cisjordanie (literally, “Cisjordan” or this side of Jordan)
By calling the West Bank Cisjordanie or “this side of Jordan,” RFI uses the Arab state of Jordan (rather than Israel) as the geographic anchor for this piece of land, though Jordan only occupied this area illegally between 1948 and 1967.
3) By contrast, RFI more faithfully renders Gaza Strip as “la bande de Gaza.”
In this same RFI broadcast, Ariel Sharon is characterized as both “sourds aux vives protestations qu’a engendre son plan de retrait de la bande de Gaza … ” (deaf to the overwhelming dissent his Gaza withdrawal plan has caused), and “insensible a ces menaces” (impervious to or ignoring, in the sense of “callous to,” these threats [from the right]).
