Zionist entity

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Anti-Zionist demonstration at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, 1920.

Zionist entity (Arabic الكيان الصهيوني) is a term used primarily in the Arab world[1][2][3] and Muslim world[4] as a pejorative euphemism for the State of Israel.[5][6] The phrase is seen as a means of expressing hostility towards Israel,[1] refusing to acknowledge its existence,[1][7][8] or denying its right to exist.[2][9]

In 1917, a preacher at Al-Taqwah Mosque in Algeria used the term in his Friday sermon in reference to the Balfour Declaration.[10] Before 1967 the term was the standard one used by Arabs to refer to Israel,[11] and was particularly popular in official broadcasts of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan during the 1960s and '70s.[12] The use of this term has persisted since then.[13][14][15] It has been used by, among others, the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization, "Iran, the Saddam Hussein regime, by Hamas" and "by both the Syrian and Iraqi ambassadors to the United Nations in the Security Council debates in February and March 2003, which preceded the invasion of Iraq."[4]

While textbooks for first-year students of Arabic in American universities avoid using the term "Israel",[16] Al Jazeera and Asharq Al-Awsat currently refer to the country as "Israel" in both English and Arabic.[17]

In addition to "Zionist entity", Palestinians use the expressions "Zionist enemy", "the occupation government" and the "Tel Aviv government"[18].

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Kirkpatrick, Jeane (1988). Legitimacy and Force: Natural and International Dimensions. Transaction Publishers. pp. 7. ISBN 0-88738-647-4. "In this Arab world where faith and politics are linked, traditionalists and radicals, Saudis and Libyans, can unite in hostility against the state of Israel - whose right to exist they deny, whose very existence they refuse to acknowledge, whose name they refuse to utter, calling Israel instead 'the Zionist entity' or 'the deformed Zionist entity'." 
  2. ^ a b Cohen, Getzel M. (2006). The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa. University of California Press, 420 (footnote 44). ISBN 0520241487. "Many Arab and Palestinian spokespeople have stopped calling the State of Israel by its name and have reverted to the expression 'the Zionist entity'. This can be understood as a return to questioning the very legitimacy of the existence of the state Israel."
  3. ^ Karsh, Efraim (2000). Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians". Routledge, 11. ISBN 0714650110. "...echoing not only the long-standing Arab castigation of Israel as 'the Zionist entity'..."
  4. ^ a b Selbourne, David. Losing Battle with Islam, Prometheus Books, 2005, ISBN 9781591023623, p. 202. "...the Israelis have suffered from repeated invasion, subjection to suicide-attacks, and the view that Israel was not a state like others. The various non-state names given to Israel in the Muslim world have been tokens of it. Of these the commonest—used by Iran, the Saddam Hussein regime, by Hamas, by the Lebanese Shi'ite movement, and many others—has been the term 'Zionist entity', or non-state. In 1991, during the Gulf War, the Iraqi army newspaper described Israel — avoiding its very name — as the 'bastard entity of the Zionists', to which it vowed 'complete annihilation'. The same term, 'Zionist entity', was used by both the Syrian and Iraqi ambassadors to the United Nations in the Security Council debates in February and March 2003, which preceded the invasion of Iraq."
  5. ^ Lassner, Jacob and Troen, S. Ilan. Jews and Muslims in the Arab World: Haunted by Pasts Real and Imagined, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, 129. ISBN 0742558428. "Does their approach to the Zionist entity, the pejorative euphemism by which they refer to Israel, differ from mainstream Palestinian nationalists..."
  6. ^ Karsh, Efraim. Arafat's Grand Strategy, Middle East Forum, Volume XI, Number 2, Spring 2004. "This pervasive denigration of Jews has been accompanied by a systematic denial of the Jewish state's legitimacy by both the PA and the PLO. Israel is often referred to by the pejorative phrase, 'the Zionist entity.' Israel is glaringly absent from Palestinian maps, which portray its territory as part of a 'Greater Palestine,' from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean."
  7. ^ Marlin, Randal (2002). Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion. Broadview Press. pp. 161. ISBN 1-55111-376-7. "Nations can be ignored by not recognizing their existence. Some Arabs would prefer not to speak of 'Israel', but of the 'Zionist entity'." 
  8. ^ Bengio, Ofra. Saddam's Word: Political Discourse in Iraq, Oxford University Press US, 2002, ISBN 9780195151855, pp. 134-135. "...we find a much greater variety of derogatory terms employed to deny the legitimacy of Israel's existence and to express contempt—mixed with fear—for Zionism... The most frequent way of denying Israel's statehood is al-kiyan al-Sahyuni (the Zionist entity)..."
  9. ^ Sank, Diane & Caplan, David I. (1991). To Be a Victim: Encounters with Crime and Injustice. Plenum Press, ISBN 030643962X, p. 289. "The very phrase 'Zionist entity' reveals the ultimate intention of those who use it. The State of Israel cannot be dignified by being called by its proper name. To refer to it as 'Israel' is to acknowledge its existence as a legal entity."
  10. ^ "North Africa: Roundup of Friday sermons", BBC 3 Nov 1917. The sermon was relayed live to mosques nationally. "The preacher followed on by saying that as a result of the weakness of the Muslim nation, the Balfour Declaration was announced on 2 November 1917 to pave the way, he added, for the creation of the "Zionist entity" in the heart of the land of Islam."
  11. ^ Mitchell, Thomas G. Native Vs. Settler: Ethnic Conflict in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000, ISBN 9780313313578, p. 48. "Before 1967 it was standard for Arabs to refer to the "Zionist entity" rather than to Israel by name."
  12. ^ Oz, Amos (1996). Under this Blazing Light. Cambridge University Press. pp. 4. ISBN 0-521-57622-9. "...the transmissions of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. Whenever they referred to Israel, they used the term 'the Zionist entity'. The announcer would say, 'the so-called government of the so-called state', but would stop short of pronouncing the word Israel, as if it were a four letter word." 
  13. ^ Patai, Raphael & Patai, Jennifer. The Myth of a Jewish Race, Wayne State University Press, 1989, ISBN 9780814319482, p. 179. "For some thirty years after the establishment of Israel, the Arab states, most of which gained independence about the same time as Israel, did not acquiesce in the existence of the small "Zionist entity" (as they referred to it) in their midst."
  14. ^ Miller, Judith. God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting from a Militant Middle East, Simon & Schuster, 1997, ISBN 9780684832289, p. 315. "Even after Madrid, the state-controlled Syrian press had avoided printing the name Israel, referring instead to 'the Zionist entity,'..."
  15. ^ Humphreys, R. Stephen. Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age, University of California Press, 2005, ISBN 9780520246911, p. 51. "But even so, for politicians and intellectuals throughout the Arab world, Israel (or as they usually called it, "the Zionist entity") was only the reflection of larger and more sinister forces."
  16. ^ Adesnik, "How Do You Say 'Israel' in Arabic?", The Weekly Standard, April 20, 2007. "Well, How Do you say 'Israel' in Arabic? The wrong way to answer that question is by consulting a textbook for first-year students of Arabic. Those textbooks will instruct you almost immediately how to say 'Palestine' or even 'Mauritania.' One of them even includes a handsome drawing of the young Yasser Arafat, with his full black beard. But when it comes to Israel, these textbooks remain silent."
  17. ^ Adesnik, "How Do You Say 'Israel' in Arabic?", The Weekly Standard, April 20, 2007. "Although it may be impossible to discern the motivations of the authors, one should compare their silence with the more direct approach taken by Arab media. On the Al Jazeera homepage, you can find the word 'Israel' in both English and Arabic. The same is true of the homepage for Asharq Al-Awsat, the internationally-read Arabic newspaper headquartered in London."
  18. ^ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/789918.html
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