Over the past two weeks, the vocabulary used in the Southasian press has reflected a reckoning with previous reporting on Israel and Palestine. Terms such as 'apartheid', 'settler colonialism', and 'occupation' have filtered into publications throughout the region, demonstrating a larger effort to report on the violence of the present moment, as well as its historical conditions. Such language demonstrates a growing contrast to the default vocabulary of 'conflict', 'clash', 'fighting', and 'exchange' that has dominated headlines in the American and the larger Western public discourse on Palestine for several decades.
Since words as specific as 'apartheid' or 'colonialism' are still considered 'explosive' when used to describe Israel, these descriptors have typically entered articles through the voices of non-governmental organisations and organisers or activists. Most recently, rights group Human Rights Watch described Israel as an apartheid state in a report, which was cited in publications ranging from the The New York Times to the New-Delhi-based Scroll.in to the Dhaka-based Daily Star.
Even those who shy away from the language of occupation have been forced to reckon with the daily realities of living in Gaza, where Israel's suffocating blockade by land, air, and sea and the airstrikes have destroyed access to clean water and medicine, or of life in the West Bank, where Israel controls all entry points and water sources. There is an increasing focus on these daily conditions of violence and how they shape Palestinian resistance. For example, the Dhaka-based Daily Prothom Alo published AFP's coverage of resistance in the West Bank, cross-cutting images of gunfire and rocket fire with more quotidian scenes from a small computer store, where a Palestinian teenager, unafraid of becoming a 'martyr', works.
These illustrations of Palestinian life under occupation are not new. Take Edward Said's 'The current status of Jerusalem', originally delivered in 1995, which was republished in The Daily Star this past week. "Although Israel has annexed East Jerusalem," Said writes, "its non-Jewish residents are not citizens, cannot vote except in municipal elections, and have the legal designation of 'resident aliens.'" Though Said was far from the first writer to dissect this power configuration, the resurfacing of his 26-year-old words signals increased attention to Palestinians' articulation of their struggle and how it transcends the current moment.