Huffington Post, Jan 7, 2008
Amb. Edward Peck
Searching for something that might be meaningful and potentially productive in the overall context of the title, I offer a recommendation: Think about the words we use.
For just a moment, consider the basic issues related to Palestine. Then think about how those issues are consistently buried in bland, euphemistic, totally misleading words and phrases, perhaps generated for the very purposes they have so resoundingly achieved: obscuring and distorting the reality of what is being done in Palestine and to the Palestinians, suppressed in their own homeland.
Think about the words used during the recent Annapolis photo-op. They were a major reason for its fully predictable total failure, and a principal contribution to every previous failure by America to present itself as, and achieve the goals of an honest broker.
Essentially, the final agreement was to consider beginning discussions that might lead to a start in undertaking further efforts to get around to doing something. To underline the true nature of this seminal achievement, the meeting was promptly followed by Israel announcing construction of 370 additional houses in the Har Homa settlement in Occupied Palestine, and the demolition of six more homes in Arab East Jerusalem. Now that's real statesmanship.
Think. Every use of the phrase 'Occupied Territories' suggests that there are alternative views, and implicitly denies that it is Occupied Palestine. That is the only correct description of the core problem, a source of profound global concern. 'Occupied Palestine' must be clearly identified in all statements made on the subject, or else a biased, one-sided view is presented.
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