Ideological badges

Calling it ‘West Bank’ or ‘Judea and Samaria’, ‘occupied lands’ or ‘administered territories’

Marcus Eliason, Associated Press, Jerusalem

Ideological badges — The Republic, 23 January 1988 — The Republic · Columbus, Indiana · 23 January 1988

Transcribed from the clipping

“When Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told an audience he was switching from ‘Judea and Samaria’ to ‘the West Bank,’ it was a verbal bombshell in a country where words often are ideological badges… The government needed a name that would cover all captured lands, but did not like calling them ‘occupied’ because Israelis prefer not to think of themselves as occupiers. Thus ‘Administered Territories’ was born… Referring to Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinians suggests to many Israelis a sympathy with their dreams of having their own state. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, and others who deny the authenticity of Palestinian nationhood, tend to speak of ‘Palestinian Arabs.’ To Israelis, who is a Palestinian is almost as vexing a question as who is a Jew. The late Golda Meir insisted there was no such thing as a Palestinian nation. She often recalled that, when Britain ruled the country, her citizenship too was ‘Palestinian.’”

Context added by this archive

The news agency explaining its own trade’s vocabulary. The page carries a map keyed OCCUPIED BY ISRAEL, naming Hebron, Halhul and Kiryat Arba, and a second Associated Press story from Jabaliya, Stones, not toys, for Arab children, which names four Palestinians — Ashraf, 12; Suheir, 9, who carries perfumed toilet paper against tear gas; Mohammed, 5; and Ashraf’s 60-year-old grandmother Nama. It ran beside a Doonesbury strip and a column of celebrity gossip.

Cite this item

"Ideological badges," The Republic, 23 January 1988. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1988-048. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1988-048