The war of the words used as weapons

Yes, I have visited this topic previously. However in light of issues with the ABC, BBC and other media here and across the world, ranging from bias to outright demonisation of Israel, as well as the language being used at anti Israel/Jewish demonstrations and on graffiti such as was recently painted across Bondi, I feel that revisiting this issue is more important than ever.

According to Wikipedia, a word is “a basic element of language that carries meaning, and can be used on its own”. The Macquarie Dictionary defines it as “a sound or a combination of sounds, or its written or printed representation”, But there is much more to words than one realises. They can be a positive aid to humanity as it seeks achievements, but they can sometimes also bring out and express the worst in people – with dangerous consequences.

What is the meaning of “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”? This is the classic chant of “picked-on” children. It’s supposed to mean that you can’t hurt me by calling me names or saying mean things about me.

Sadly however this is far from the truth.

Some older readers of this column may recall a classic Hebrew textbook from the 1950s era – Elef Milim– a thousand words. That’s how language was once taught, as words are the basis of the construct from which speech is made and recorded.

A child’s speech begins with learning words – particularly terms relating to persons and objects meaningful to him or her. These individual words are subsequently joined into sentences, serving as the building blocks of speech that distinguishes humans from other creatures.

Hamlet spoke of “words words words”; Shakespeare wrote that line as a response to Polonius’ question “What do you read my Lord?”; Hamlet intended to imply the worthlessness of words. But from a Jewish perspective words are far from worthless. In his groundbreaking analytical commentary on the Chumash, the 19th century leader of German Jewish orthodoxy Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch emphasises the inter-relationship between different meanings of Hebrew words. One particular example is particularly relevant to our subject.

The word “tevah” – used for Noah’s ark – is also the word meaning “word”; As did that “tevah” – the ark – words may make and save humanity. But words can also be destructive as we learnt from the other story in that very same parasha – the tower of Bavel – where a world united in language could be self-destructive by the very virtue of that unity. And the validity of that idea extends far beyond ancient history and our Hebrew language.

The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells written well over a century ago. But today we are experiencing what is effectively a war of the worlds between civilisation as we know it (some may say “knew” it) and a world of brutality.

However I would suggest another relevant point. The contemporary “war of the worlds” is not only armed combat in a physical sense; simultaneously we today are undoubtedly in the midst of a war of words. Words regarding which we long thought the meaning was straightforward have now been twisted into weaponry. Surely for decades “Nazi” had a clear meaning – yet it is now ironically twisted to be applied to the very people who were the ultimate victims of Nazism. Surely “genocide”, a term coined in 1944 by a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin, has a particular meaning referring to unprovoked destruction of a people – yet now it is being used against the very nation that was once the subject of that activity but now must fight in self defence. Those who committed the atrocities on October 7 were terrorists in the strongest sense of the word – not freedom fighters – yet some media seek to call them as such eschewing calling them out as terrorists. And the world blindly adopts and uses such words and phrases to almost justify fighting us by any means – and with repetitive use of them persuade those ignorant of reality in particular negative directions.

Meanings of so many words are changed to suit arguments. Since when is “settler” a pejorative word? Since when is “proportionality” applicable to fighting ultimate evil as displayed on Simchat Torah? And how can the Hamas massacre be designated and celebrated as a “counter offensive” thus attempting to justify that ultimate contemporary exercise in brutality. Yet the media blithely and repeatedly uses words that are quickly transformed into weapons from which we all suffer.

And then, in an era when sound bytes reign supreme, even comparatively innocent words such as “river” and “sea” are combined into slogans that are quickly memorised and used as weapons and for indoctrination purposes. Everyone is now aware of the phrase “from the river to the sea”. It is not intended by its users as a geography lesson – rather it is a euphemism for the destruction of the State of Israel that they seek.

I conclude by quoting from a study entitled “Using Language as a Weapon: Verbal Manifestations of Contemporary Anti-Semitism” in which antisemitism researcher Monika Schwarz-Friesel, a professor of linguistics at the Technical University Berlin, makes very salient points.

“Words are powerful: they can be used to offend, to hurt and to threaten people. Some words are like weapons, they wound like bullets, some are like poison, they slowly affect the mind and activate a lethal semantics. Using language as a tool in order to discriminate against and demonise human beings as members of a hostile group, can lead to radical political and social consequences in a society.”

Indeed Western society as a whole need take note of her words which bear particular relevance to contemporary attitudes to Jews in general as well, of course, to Israel in particular.

Shabbat shalom,

Yossi

Yossi Aron OAM is The AJN’s religious affairs editor.