July 16, 2009

The Israel Project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary, leaked to the media in recent weeks, is a guide written by political language maven Frank Luntz. It is intended to “provide you with many specific words and phrases to help you communicate effectively in support of Israel.”

The “dictionary” offers 25 reasonable and helpful rules for effective communication, from “show empathy to both sides” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to “remind people — again and again — that Israel wants peace,” to “Don’t pretend that Israel is without mistakes or fault. It’s not true, and no one believes it.”

For most of its 116 pages, the Dictionary is a thoughtful and useful resource for choosing “words that work” and avoiding common pitfalls that often limit the effectiveness of Israel’s advocates.

In one important area, however, the guide stumbles. In what it calls “The Best Settlement Argument,” it recommends this statement: “The idea that anywhere that you have Palestinians there can’t be any Jews, that some areas have to be Jew-free, is a racist idea.” Such thinking, it goes on, is akin to “ethnic cleansing.” The statement sounds reasonable, but violates the spirit of a two-state solution. “Ethnic cleansing” and “Jew-free” are loaded terms imported from different conflicts. No doubt, it would be admirable for the Palestinians to create a state that welcomes a Jewish minority, just as Israel has a thriving Arab minority. Supporters of a two-state solution, however, who include a majority of Israelis, know that the viability of a Palestinian state as well as the security of Israel depend on extensive separation of the two peoples.

In fact, the Luntz guide puts it quite well in another example of “words that work”: “Two homelands for two peoples living side-by-side in peace and security is not a fake slogan, but a real necessity for the stability in the entire region. Each homeland should provide a solution to the national aspiration of its people — Israel, as a homeland for the Jewish people, and the creation of a Palestinian homeland, as a fulfillment of their national desire.”

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