Stop Calling Gaza an Open Air Prison
Why this phrase doesn't help the cause...
If Gaza is a prison…
Then are its inhabitants criminals?
I understand why people use this phrase.
You want to describe the inhumane nature of the situation.
Because if we can use emotive language maybe others will wake up to the reality of what is happening there.
But I want to suggest that the average netizen—or really anyone who isn’t part of you information circles and cycles—is not moved by this phrasing.
For someone who hasn’t been consuming unbiased content on Gaza, Iraq and about Muslims in general…
And has alternative sources of information at least in the same quantity and frequency as the mainstream media…
Being told that Gaza is an “open air prison” doesn’t conjure the same emotive and even ideological response you would like to think it should.
But all that aside…
Is it even accurate to describe Gaza as an open air prison?
Gaza is 25 miles long and 5 miles wide.
It is the most densely populated place on earth.
Israel controls everything—even prisons allow access to water and other basic human rights.
Gaza has the highest unemployment rate—with 70% unemployment among young people.
50% of Gazans suffer from severe food deficiency.
Israel implements a starvation plus policy—they calculate the maximum food they can withhold with to keep Gazans just above starvation.
Calling it a prison implies criminality…
But even criminals are treated better.
If Israel was justified in their claims and we agreed that suppressing Gazans was a security necessity…
Even if we accepted the implied criminality as many people do to justify the genocide…
We would at least expect prison conditions.
I think it is more appropriate to call it a concentration camp.
Because what else is it?
And I’ll ask you one question that you can answer for yourself…
Which I hope will make you think twice about calling it a prison ever again:
Which prison has half of its inmates made up of children?
Now, do you see why people need to add “open air” when they say Gaza is a prison?
It’s mental gymnastics.
Because deep down we know this is a ridiculous way to describe a genocide.
And I honestly believe it helps the enemy when we use dumb language.
Language is important.
There is a special word for certain things:
Like “holocaust”…
Or “antisemitism”…
And deceptive words for others:
Like “open air prison”.
Think.
Calling it a concentration camp strikes at the moral heart of the issue.
Because of the reality of the situation.
And because of who is carrying out the genocide.
And look…
There are other things we can call it:
As Norman Finkelstein says it’s more than a concentration camp… it’s a “killing field”.
Organ harvesting which happens there makes me think of the phrase… “human farm”.
The unfathomable resolve of the Gazans themselves should be highlighted… “The last bastion of humanity”? (I don’t have the words to describe what later historians will surely write volumes on.)
But whatever term you use:
Make it meaningful…
Make it powerful…
Make it true.