Irish Examiner View: Inflammatory language loses force when overused

Using words including ‘apartheid’ and ‘antisemitic’ has become so pervasive that they risk being rendered meaningless.

United Nations Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard said the international community 'must face up to the reality of Israel’s apartheid'. Picture: Cemal Yurttas/DHA via AP

As President Michael D Higgins likes to remind us: “Words matter. Words hurt. Words empower. Words can divide.”

Two of the most potent words in public discourse are ‘apartheid’ and ‘antisemitic’. There is a time to use them, but overuse either of them and they lose their force.

Consider the words used by Amnesty International in a report on Israel that trumpets the ‘A’ word: The title of the report, “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and crime against humanity”, is doubly and deliberately provocative.

Crime against humanity is an offence in international criminal law, adopted in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, which tried Nazi leaders in 1945 and was incorporated into the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998.

An accusation of racism, another word bound to provoke anger, was also invoked when Amnesty secretary general Agnès Callamard said: “There is no possible justification for a system built around the institutionalised and prolonged racist oppression of millions of people.

“The international community must face up to the reality of Israel’s apartheid and pursue the many avenues to justice which remain shamefully unexplored.”

Israel has been justifiably criticised on many grounds, in particular its defiance of international law by permitting and encouraging continued settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

While Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories has often been shameful, characterising it as apartheid, a system of strict racial segregation, does a disservice to those millions who suffered under that brutal regime in South Africa. 

Likewise, the use of inflammatory words such as ‘racist’ diminishes the pain and suffering of those who are subject to such abuse on a daily basis.

Words matter in other respects, as well. Accusing someone of antisemitism has become so pervasive and overused that it risks being rendered meaningless and viewed as a means to silence critics of Israel.

It is not antisemitic to support Palestinian rights, demand a halt to settlements, or highlight Israel’s violations of human rights and breaches of international law. 

In Ireland, fighting for the oppressed is our collective calling, but voicing support for the Palestinian cause can draw accusations of antisemitism, as English actress Emma Watson discovered recently. Watson, best known for playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, posted an image on Instagram showing a photograph of a pro-Palestinian protest with the banner “Solidarity is a Verb” written across it.

It drew the wrath of Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon. Sharing Watson’s post on Twitter, Mr Dannon said: “10 points from Gryffindor for being an antisemite.”

The sad reality of that overreaction is that real antisemitism is on the rise both in Europe and the US.

Words hurt. Words can divide. Because words matter, we should choose them carefully and use them wisely.