Guardian Newspeak: Intentionally vague headline of the day

“The B vocabulary consisted of words which had been deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them.” – from the definition of “Newspeak” in George Orwell’s dystopia, 1984.

Here’s a quintessentially Guardian headline, via a Reuters story, on the Palestinian policemen who opened fire without cause on Jewish civilians who had worshiped at Joseph’s Tomb:

For those unschooled in the Guardian Left strategy when events force them to report on innocent Jews murdered by Palestinians, see our previous post which listed and expanded upon the four main rules using, as a helpful illustration, Conal Urquhart’s report on the terrorist attack in Jerusalem. 

Here are the rules:

1: Never use the word “terrorist” or “terrorism” as such language is inherently loaded, and influenced by one’s subjective opinion on how to define the word.

2. Use passive language which may obscure the fact that an intentional act of violence was perpetrated by Palestinians against innocent Israeli civilians:

3: Use vague language meant to avoid, whenever possible, reaching even the most obvious (politically inconvenient) conclusions regarding such attacks:

4. Deflect responsibility from the terrorists who everyone knows committed the act by changing the subject or blaming Israel and blurring the causality:

In looking at the headline the first thing which jumps out is rule #1, as you’d have no idea from reading the headline that the “Policemen” who murdered an innocent Israeli civilian was a Palestinian Authority Policeman.

Moving along, we see #3 employed in reference to the “West Bank Holy Site”. Unless there’s a hitherto unknown distinct West Bank religion, with its own sacred sites, it would seem that the “Holy Site” referred to is a site holy to Jews, Joseph’s Tomb.

Also, in the sub-heading, rule #4 applies, as we are told that Israeli victims who had gone to Joseph’s Tomb were there “without permission”, thus blurring causality and deflecting responsibility for the attack – the mere presence of Jews, of course, acting as sufficient provocation for Palestinian gunfire. 

Finally, here’s what a headline (and accompanying text) about the incident would possibly look like if written by an editor free of such anti-Zionist ideological conditioning. 

Written By
More from Adam Levick
Guardian falsely claims that most new Israeli immigrants move to the West Bank
A recent edition of The Observer (sister publication of the Guardian) published...
Read More
Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *