Zionist entity
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Zionist Entity is a pejorative term for Israel.
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[edit] Origins of the term
"Zionist entity" is a play on the term "Palestinian entity", coined by Iraqi leader ʿAbd al-Karīm Qāsim in 1958.[1] Qāsim was referring to the collection of Palestinian groups that later became the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israel War, Israelis and Americans began using the term "Palestinian entity" to refer to an Arab body that would govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as envisaged in the 1969 Rogers plan and other proposals. A congress of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine issued a statement in 1969 that called for the "total eradication of the Zionist entity." The phrase combines "Palestinian entity" with "Zionist state," a phrase earlier used by Arabs to refer to Israel. The Fatah Constitution of 1965 uses "Zionist state" or "Israel",[2] while the PLO Charter of 1968 uses "Israel."[3]
[edit] Usage examples
The term is usually used in a negative context by opponents of Israel, often Muslims.
When the opponents of the legitimacy of the State of Israel use the term "Zionist Entity" rather than using the word Israel, they usually mean that Israel does not have a right to exist. [4]
For example, an anti-Israel web site mentions "support for 'Israel' , the Zionist entity established by force and violence in Palestine on real estate stolen from its owners." [5]
[edit] Related terms
"Zionist Regime" and ZOG are also used to portray Israel as an illegitimate state. [6]
[edit] Quotes
The following sample publications discuss the widespread usage of the pejorative term Zionist entity.
- "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." (Karsh, Efraim. "Arafat's Grand Strategy", Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2004).
- "Nevertheless, no special Jewish sensitivity is required to glean racial hatred from Palestinian suicide bombings of Jewish civilians, bombings and defacings of synagogues in Europe, hostile rhetoric about "the Jews" from such Islamic groups as Hezbollah and Hamas, and decades of Arab-state rhetoric about "the Jews" and the "Zionist entity"." (Tilley, Virginia Q. The One-state Solution, University of Michigan Press, May 24, 2005, ISBN 0-472-11513-8, p. 198).
- "...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." (Oz, Amos. Under this Blazing Light, Cambridge University Press, Jul 13, 1996, ISBN 0-521-57622-9, p. 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'." (Kirkpatrik, Jeane. Legitimacy and Force: Natural and International Dimensions, Transaction Publishers, Jan 1, 1988, ISBN 0-88738-647-4, p. 7).
- "Nations can be ignored by not recognizing their existence. Some Arabs would prefer not to speak of 'Israel', but of the 'Zionist entity'." (Marlin, Randal. Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion, Broadview Press, Aug 1, 2002, ISBN 1-55111-376-7, p. 161).
