"Attacked" would indicate that Israel was the aggressor in any of the wars or even in the bloodshed that began in the latter part of the 1800s when Jews began to restore their homeland in the region of historic Israel. The Jews were defending their right to not only have a home (on land that they purchased), but their very lives. This sort of action is called "defense." The reason why Muslims have a problem understanding the difference between the two words is that when they "defend" Islam, they "attack" and kill other people.

"Helpless" portrays an image of being alone, or surrounded, or without the ability to protect oneself. A "helpless" situation might exist in the case of a Christian or Jewish girl walking through Nazareth and being assaulted and raped by several Arab men. That's "helpless." Muslims use the word differently. To them, when they're confronted by one or more persons capable of fighting back, they (the Arabs) are then "helpless." Other people use the word "cowardice" to describe what the Arabs call "helpless."

"We call her Yasmine, and we're hoping that she'll blow herself to bits on a crowded school bus by the time she reaches ten."

"Unarmed" is an interesting descriptive word. Such as when I heard a caller to a national radio show describe the machine-gun toting "Palestinians" as being "unarmed." The talk radio host correctly reminded the caller, "One machine gun can ruin your whole day." The same could be said of those "unarmed" Arabs that are firing mortars at buildings or carrying bombs into restaurants: one mortar round can really spoil a family get-together.

Frequently "Palestinians" and their supporters will cite the "unfair" disparity between the Israelis using tanks and the Arabs using only automatic weapons, bombs, and incendiary devices. They shriek about the "unarmed" disadvantage and shout that if the roles were reversed, and they had the tanks, that they would be victorious. Needless to say, if they simply chose to lead productive lives and teach their children things other than hatred of Jews and the West, there would be no need to be at an "unarmed" disadvantage. In any event, they've obviously been able to repress the memories of when the multi-nation Arab army attacked the nascent State of Israel in 1948 and they, not the Jews, had the tanks and artillery. It didn't help them then, I'm not certain as to how it would help them now; they would still have to confront a group of trained Israeli soldiers (the heavily armed Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian militaries could attest to the difficulty of that).

"Civilians"! Ah, "civilians." Only in the Islamic world could a group of people armed with weapons and engaging in warfare be called "civilians". However, "civilians" is actually an appropriate term to use because in their world, war, killing, hatred, destruction, and violence is the norm. If you raise a child to believe that his primary goal in life is to kill the infidels and martyr himself, then he is just an ordinary "civilian," as judged by their community standards: that's their civility, hence he is a "civilian." The rest of Earth's population might use words like "combatant," "soldier," or "fighter."

"Massacred," the past tense of "massacre" (both used in the same way). This is an easy one to explain. Any battle lost to infidels is a "massacre," and should be reported as such so as to not humiliate Islam. It doesn't matter if the sides are balanced or even if the Muslims began the battle with superior forces and materiel, if they lost they were "massacred."

"Women": clearly a relative term when discussing Arabs. However, considering the numerous times that Arabs have dressed as women during battles and in terrorist activities in order to disguise their efforts and create a propaganda hullabaloo after being "massacred," yes, I'd say that these men are "women." Although, semantically, anyone can see how the word differs in Islamic and non-Islamic use. And with this difference in mind, noting Yasser Arafat's predilection for wearing women's clothing when eluding capture, one could understand why he's not man enough to make peace with Israel.

"Children," are there "Palestinian" children? Can you consider a 4-year old that is being taught to kill a "child"? Would parents wish and encourage their "children" to die, and then celebrate when they do get killed? How are these people "children" or "parents" or "mothers and fathers"? What kind of distortion is there in Islam that so radically alters the definitions of every single family-related word? "Tools" is a much better word. "Device could also work, as could "apparatus" or "gadget" or "instrument": like "instrument" of destruction. "Ahmed, I'd like you to meet my little instrument-of-mass-destruction. We call her Yasmine, and we're hoping that she'll blow herself to bits on a crowded school bus by the time she reaches ten."

So is there any wonder why so many people think that the "Palestinians" are the ones being victimized? Why people are misunderstanding the intent of the Arab nations? Why people all over the world think that a country with less than 5 million Jews occupying only about 8,000 square miles of land could be the aggressor in a conflict with a couple hundred million Arabs who occupy nearly 1.3 million square miles of land? It's a problem of semantics, and we've got to get everyone reading off the same page.

Fortunately, I have the solution! In addition to putting bibles in hotel rooms we should be providing a dictionary and thesaurus. And we should start with the hotels used by the news media.  

Marc J. Rauch is a multi-award winning TV/film writer, producer, and director, and has been a broadcasting and marketing executive since 1975.

Outpost               - 8 -               June 2003