Global Journal of Human Social Science, G: Linguistics and Education, Volume 21 Issue 14

The Gatekeepers Donna Robinson Divine Abstract- “The Gatekeepers” describes the reaction of a handful of well established Israel Studies scholars to a special issue of the journal Israel Studies called “Word Crimes: Reclaining the Language of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict ”. These professors preferred to denounce rather than engage with the arguments and analyses presented in the special issue deploying their authority to try to silence this challenge to the conventional discourse on the Middle East Conflict. Keywords: word crimes, israeli-palestinian conflict, academic discourse, settler colonialism, imperialism, Zionism . I ntroduction ublished in April 2019, the Special Issue of Israel Studies hit a nerve so raw it still tingles online journals and newspapers. As one of the co-editors who conceived the project which has come to be known as Word Crimes: Reclaiming the Language of the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict , I am flattered by the attention but troubled that the argument it advances has been ignored by so many. 1 Because a handful of established scholars seemingly pr eferred to denounce rather than engage with the issues raised in this volume, they effectively ended up grafting a level of legitimacy on the highly flawed discourse the Special Issue examined. One might well ask why an exploration and deconstruction of a discourse would elicit such blasts of hostility against the project and so unabashedly mete out savage insults to its contributors. Word Crimes is meant to examine the linkage between language and thought – long a staple of philosophical inquiry 2 and to ask whether deploying terms like genocid e o r apartheid offers a genuine understanding of the complexities of the Conflict. It aims to call attention to how certain words and ideas have begun to settle into a public discourse and to take the measure of the consequences for the academic study of Israel, of Palestinians, of the Conflict and not incidentally, of politics. The politics propagated by this discourse is binary–fit into good or bad rubrics that appeal to feelings not into categories that show the way power is actually wielded. Identifying the words that have become the central elements in this discourse, the volume shows how a lexical transformation has acquired a totemic standing in the academy and is spreading beyond campus perimeters with a momentum augmented in an increasingly networked world. Word Crimes focuses on terms because they function much like oracles coaxing judgements in the absence of evidence so long as Israel is assigned to a rhetorical zone once reserved for brutal regimes committing ghastly crimes. Events are pigeonholed into moral absolutes that appeal to emotions or to a larger ideological agenda and not to an accurate depiction of the issues and of the reasons for the persistence of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Word Crimes stirred up a powerful anger provoking a sense of righteousness but not a clarity of thought. From the moment it was posted online, alarm was sounded when people saw only the title and table of contents. One person expressed shock at ‘the inflammatory and demonizing title’ while another asked ‘who are exactly the criminals and what should their punishment be? ’ 3 – all on open access listservs where rage accumulated and quickly catalysed into charges that the Special Issue compromised the intellectual status of the Journal and of the Association for Israel Studies because of the Journal’s loose relationship with it. In fact, this one Special Issue was said to have the potential to wreak havoc with the entire field of Israel Studies. Much of the anger was directed at me because at the time, I served as both President of the Association for Israel Studies and one of the editors of Word Crimes . Every comment I issued, as one of the volume’s editors, was construed as an official statement of the Association inevitably restraining them. I completed my term of office in June 2019, and for that reason, I am no longer constrained in what I can say. Moreover, I am convinced that there is more to say particularly about the factors promoting, if not causing, the uproar. Ironically, the reactions, with their remarkably formulaic denunciations, were filtered through the very template Word Crimes interrogated. Critics dismissed Word Crimes characterising it as a species of Israeli government propaganda. Rating a project as failing to meet minimal academic standards without offering credible evidence is, itself, so transgressive of academic norms that it ought to be the focus for close examination particular since the project was clearly intended to open not close down discussion. But before scrutinising the reaction, let me review the reasons we – the editors and contributors – decided to subject what is becoming a common discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to sustained analysis and to do so, by examining its linguistic parts. I. T he S pecial I ssue As much as the essays in the collection are about words, they are also about history and politics. P © 2021 Global Journals Volume XXI Issue XIV Version I 37 ( G ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2021 Author: e-mail: drdivine@smith.edu