Terminology Matters!

The Daily Mail, in a recent story, wrote:

For obvious reasons, the IDF would never reference “Palestine” in any of its communications.

In addition, Israel and the IDF always make sure to differentiate between the Palestinian population at large and terrorist groups. It is clear that the IDF held Hamas responsible for the violence and not Palestinians in general.

We contacted the Daily Mail, which corrected the error.

The sentence now reads: “The Israeli Defence Force said in a statement: ‘The IDF views the shooting at Israeli communities severely. Hamas is solely responsible for what happens in the Gaza Strip.'”

Meanwhile, the Daily Express writes:

While the use of the word “Palestine” to describe a non-existent state is dubious, the use of the word “settlements” to describe Israeli towns and cities within Palestinian rocket range is misleading.

In any other context, the word “settlements” could be used to describe any town or village. In the Israeli context, rightly or wrongly, most people understand the word to describe Jewish communities located over the Green Line in the disputed territories.

Those communities targeted by Gazan rockets are certainly not settlements in that sense of the word; they are located firmly within Israel’s 1949 Armistice Line.

We’ve requested a change to the text from the Daily Express. Watch this space.

Terminology and language are incredibly important within the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The media need to get it right and we are there to help make sure they do.