George Orwell rightly diagnosed that the technique of modern totalitarians is to corrupt language.  If this were solely the technique of the left, then it would be bad enough.  Unfortunately, the right has picked it up as well.  Now communication has become impossible, and understanding has disappeared.

Our political discourse is becoming controlled by linguistic tyrants who insist on nouns and adjectives that predetermine a conclusion by their very usage.  This is most noticeable concerning the Mideast.

The Arabs tried this with their rejection of Israel.  Refusing to admit Israel's existence, they instead used the vacuously evasive term "The Zionist Entity."  I remember thinking as a young boy that the term was idiotic beyond belief.  Arabs refusing to name Israel would not make Israel disappear.  This is magical thinking – shutting one's eyes, stopping one's ears, and saying, "I can't hear you.'"

Recently, supporters of Israel have come up with an equally ridiculous evasion called "Fakestinians."  Many on the pro-Israeli side refuse to recognize the existence of Palestinian Arabs.  Woe betide any author or editorialist who dares use the impolitic P-word.  No matter how pro-Israel the rest of the article might be, the comment section will be inundated with insults intended to intimidate.

The purpose is not to correct the author on fact, but to create a thought crime.  Only one opinion is allowed, and those who do not hew to the proper vocabulary and the inevitable desired conclusion will be labeled anti-Semitic.  Shut down all deviants who think otherwise.

While Israel's cause is noble, the tactic is positively totalitarian.

To be safe from criticism from both sides, one might be obliged to describe the Mideast conflict as this: Fakestinians are the opponents of the Zionist Entity.

A people who do not exist are fighting a nebulous entity that does not merit recognition.  Of course, both sides really do exist, and real people die, but don't let reality interfere with certified and pre-approved nomenclature.

Warring against this psychosis are the writings of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of right-wing Zionism, who used the term "Palestinian Arabs" in his essay "The Iron Wall."  Were he alive today, Ze'ev would no doubt have to be re-educated for not being Zionist enough in his vocabulary.

Of course, the Koran refers to "Israel," and  not as the "Zionist Entity;" but don't let that stop proper left-wing grammar from asserting itself.  Were he alive today, Mohammed would also need re-education.

Not to be outdone, some Arabs now refer to the Jews as Khazars – a medieval Asian Turkic people who supposedly converted to Judaism in the 8th century.  By this theory, modern Jews are descended from these paleo-Turks, and not Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Therefore, they have no claim on the land.

This denies modern Jewry their history, to assert that they are either European or Khazar instead.  The Jewish people no longer exist; they are "actually" converted Khazars grafted into the European genome, with no right to Israel.  As is typical, a Jewish author popularized this idea: Arthur Koestler in his The Thirteenth Tribe.

The Arabs ran away with Koestler's "brilliant" insight at just about the same time that Golda Meir said, "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people."

If you do not exist, and I am not recognized, they why are we killing each other?

Taken to a logical conclusion, we have this: A fraudulent Khazarian Entity is fighting against a Fakestinian people who do not exist.

Put away your worry caps – the Mideast conflict is a virtual struggle and has no basis in fact.  The money we spend is all going to fund retirement homes for Hollywood special effects crews, who have been making all those convincing news reports for 70 years.  Today, those nightly roundups are generated using an advanced Xbox.  Don't let the secret out!

"But wait!" some aver.  The Arabist Philip Hitti of Princeton and PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein admitted that Palestinians do not exit.

Well, yes, they did.   And the Israeli academic Shlomo Sand claims that the Jewish people were  merely invented.  I do not believe him, either.

People say stupid things, particularly when they have advanced degrees.

The absolute incontestable prize for obfuscation of language must go to the right-wing Jewish group Regavim who, in one of their videos, referred to Palestinian construction as "worrisome territorial facts" (0:43) rather than a simple, yet understandable, "illegal Palestinian land grab."  The latter wording might be politically incorrect, and Regavim would not want to use the P-word.  After all, the P-people do not exist.

Not content with that masterpiece of meaningless mulch, the Regavim video upped the ante and delivered a knockout blow with a criticism of the nonexistent P-people for creating "a non-Jewish territorial contiguity" (1:06).

So let's settle some points, none of which will invalidate Israel's claims on the land – but they will clear our brains from politically correct patois.

Palestine and Palestinians are accepted terms.  They convey meaning, not legitimacy.  The use of the term "Confederate" does not convey approval for their cause, nor for slavery, but it is understandable.  One does not approve of the Palestinian cause merely by using the term.

The Palestinian people exist, in spite of what Golda Meir, Philip Hitti, and Newt Gingrich said, just as the Jewish people exist in spite of what Arthur Koestler and Shlomo Sand wrote.  The existence of the Palestinian people is not a happy fact, but it is a fact.

Many of those Palestinians were in the land for centuries.  They did not all arrive with a 7th-century Muslim invasion or a 19th-century migration.  Rather, the Muslims invaded and married into the locals, imposing Islam, the way the Spanish married into the natives of Latin America and imposed Catholicism.  Most Latins have a quantum of native Indian blood, and a good portion of the Palestinians have a quantum of local blood native to the land.  In plain words, many are distantly partly descended from either early Christians (who are probably partly descended from Jewish converts) or from Jews who converted to Islam directly.  If a later Palestinian clan arrived from somewhere else, most, not all, of them arrived before the start of the 19th-century aliyahs, which places them in the land before the vast majority of returning Jews. 

Most Palestinian population increase after 1900 was due to sanitation improvements.  When the Jews drained the swamps, it saved Arabs from malaria also.

This does not void Jewish claims to the land – which are quite valid – but it does void ridiculous lexicological twaddle.  Refusing to name the Palestinians will not make them disappear.

The Palestinians did not invent themselves in 1964.  The Palestinians opened a paper called Filastin in 1911.  A soccer club called Palestino was started in 1920 in Chile by Palestinian immigrants.  Jund Filastin was a province for four centuries, longer than the existence of the USA.  The nations of Europe derived from Roman provinces.  It is a starting point, and were it not for the Jewish claim, the Palestinians could easily make a claim to national existence based on that province alone.

It does not matter than they initially wanted to join Syria.  Texas ended up joining the USA in 1845, but no one doubts that Texans exist – and many Texans now would want to go it alone again.  It does not matter that it had no capital.  Neither did Texas in 1835.  Nor did Texas have a historical currency, or a flag when Texans revolted.  In fact, most of those Texans were recent immigrants when they set up Texas.

Nor does it matter if they invented themselves.  So did America, Argentina, Chile, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia...and, of course, Texas.

Of course, none of this invalidates Israel, but it does mean that Palestine has at least as much historical validity as Texas, though nowhere near the martial skills.

Israel is in a struggle – a struggle it will not win if its adherents resort to the tactics of totalitarian leftists.

Right now in the USA, we have imbeciles who think they can redefine reality when it comes to gender and marriage.  Until recently, gender was determined by secondary sex characteristics and DNA.  Now it depends on verbal wizardry.  Civilizations collapse when they come to this point.

The Palestinians exist...unfortunately!  Maybe they shouldn't, but they do.  Word games will not help Israel get rid of them.  Whether is it Judea and Samaria or the West Bank, the Palestinians live on it.  Renaming them will not remove them.

To those who engage in this linguistic façade, please stop.  I support Israel, not counter-productive linguistics.

Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who is neither Latin nor Arab.  He runs a website, http://latinarabia.com, where he discusses the subculture of Arabs in Latin America.  He wishes his Spanish were better.