An exercise in Orwellian style ‘doublespeak’
By Jan Benvie

Last month the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, made a key
speech in which he set out his government’s position on a future
Palestinian state. The speech, an interesting exercise in Orwellian
‘doublespeak’*, appears to have been enough to satisfy the international
community, but does not, I believe, offer the prospect of a just peace.

Netanyahu quoted the prophet Isaiah, and used the word ‘peace’ forty-five
times in his speech. “Our prophets gave the world ... peace, we greet one
another with … peace,” he said - a clear reference to ‘shalom’. However,
the ‘shalom’ of the prophets is much more than the English word ‘peace’,
it means wholeness, health, welfare, harmony. In the book of Isaiah the
word ‘peace’ is used at least 20 times, but so too is the word ‘justice’.
Netanyahu used the word justice only once.

On negotiations he began by saying, “Let’s begin negotiations immediately
without preconditions,” but later stated “If we receive this guarantee
regarding demilitarization … if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the
state of the Jewish people, then we will be ready … to reach a solution …”

He spoke of Israel as the “historical homeland” of the Jews, but rejected
the right of return for the Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed when
Israel was created in 1948. If the return of “Palestinian refugees [to]
inside Israel contradicts … the State of Israel as the state of the
Jewish People” what does that say about the rights of non-Jewish citizens
of Israel? These Palestinian-Israelis, descendents of those able to
remain in 1948, constitute at least 20% of the population .

“Israel must govern its own fate and security,” he declared. “Each people
will have … its own government.” He called for the “strengthening [of
Palestinian] governance,” but rejected the Hamas government,
democratically elected in 2006, “The Palestinian Authority will have to …
overcome Hamas in Gaza.”

When Netanyahu said “together we will invest in plowshares and pruning
hooks, not swords and spears,” he meant the Palestinians – there was no
talk of a ‘demilitarized’ Israel. When he used the words “live freely,”
“mutual respect,” “neither will threaten the security or survival of the
other,” what he meant was a variation of Gaza – a “demilitarized” state
that cannot “close their air space to [Israel]”.

The international community has chosen to interpret Netanyahu’s words as
an acceptance of a Palestinian state, but he is not talking about a
sovereign Palestinian state. He means a series of Gaza-style, open-air
prison camps, where the inmates can control some basic aspects of their
lives, but the ultimate control of who and what (even in the form of basic
food, medical and energy supplies) is controlled, and severely restricted
by Israel.

For Netanyahu, as for Orwell’s Big Brother, War is Peace and Freedom is
Slavery.

*In his novel 1984, George Orwell used the terms ‘doublethink’ and
‘newspeak’, the term ‘doublespeak’ was coined in the 1950s (likely
inspired by the novel) to mean thinking one thing and speaking another.