LETTER FROM JERUSALEM: HOW TO SPEAK PEACE PROCESS
By Arlynn Nellhaus

Remember when a "work accident" referred to a painter falling off a ladder or a carpenter sawing his fingers, instead of wood?

Not any more. In the dazzlingly confusing lexicon of journalists covering the Middle East, a "work accident" is what happens when a Palestinian terrorist making a bomb to blow up teen-agers at a disco or kids in their school bus accidentally blows himself up, instead.

Of course, the sentence I just wrote isn't acceptable current journalese. I used the word "terrorist." The overseas press prefers to say, "militant" or "activist."

I always thought I was an activist when I went door-to-door in Denver distributing Democratic literature.

I thought I was a militant when I picketed the Denver school board or when I joined Jerusalem Post union-member journalists last year in a demonstration against JP management.

So if activists and militants, according to CNN, BBC and their cohorts, is what you are supposed to call the Palestinians preparing violence, what was I? A petunia?

Here are some words the press uses to which I object:

-- "The West Bank." How does anyone know just where the West Bank is? Some Palestinians tell you that the term includes Tel Aviv and Haifa, for the West Bank is anything west of the Jordan River.

I prefer more precise terms. "Samaria" tells you that an event took place north east of Jerusalem. "Judea" says that it was south west of Jerusalem. "The Jordan Valley" is a specific locale.

Last week, the Voice of America said an Israeli was killed near "the West Bank city of Bethlehem." Where has the VOA been the past several years? Bethlehem has a precise address.

Bethlehem is in the turf known as the Palestinian Authority. The PA has its own postage stamps, telephone area code and corruption. The VOA should have said, "the

Palestinian Authority city of Bethlehem."

-- A "demonstration." This is what the press calls violent attacks against Israelis, especially if the "demonstrators" are lobbing stones.

Even the New York Times uses that term, too, if what is being lobbed are firebombs. Perhaps reporters need dictionaries.

The foreign press misses the point: that the purpose of hurling a stone – and a firebomb, too -- is to kill someone. And every so often, stones do – most recently a 5-month-old Israeli baby and also a grown man.

But then, the killer, according to the press, was only carrying on a "demonstration." This is as silly as a "work accident."

Several expressions using the word "peace" strike me as inane. One is "the peace process."

It's a pity, but Yasser Arafat has given the word, "peace," a bad name.

Can the word have any true meaning when it comes from Arafat's lips? His favorite statement is, "the peace of the brave." He wants Israel to be brave while he gets.

He uses the word, "peace," tactically, because he knows that it makes europeans, especially, fawn over him -- Arafat in military uniform and with a gun at his side, but uttering that golden word.

Connecting the word "peace" with "process" sounds as if the goal is some sort of cheese. Israelis long ago dubbed "peace process, "the piece process," meaning the whittling away of Israel step by step as Arafat long has said is his goal.

Anyway, don't look for "peace" between Israelis and Palestinians with all its connotations of hugs and kisses. The best hope is for "conflict resolution," and even that might be hoping for a lot.

Then there are news announcers who refer to an event that will "jump start" or "kick start the peace process." Or they talk of "getting the peace process back on track."

May we be spared ever hearing those expressions again? Doesn't the press blush to utter such clichés?

If they are going to talk about the negotiations, " I wish they'd merely say, "resume" and forget about "jump starting" or "kick starting" anything unless it's their Tin Lizzie or getting anything back on track other than their Lionel train.

Speaking of word use, Hanan Ashrawi, that Palestinian so-called moderate, has a way with words. Because she speaks in such a reasonable tone (unless she drops her facade, and behaves like a high school cheerleader -- as she has on "Nightline"), her words can strike listeners as reasonable.

She often complains that Israelis are trying to "Judaize Jerusalem."

What on earth does that mean? In modern times, Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority for more than 150 years. It's been "Judaized" (to use Ashrawi's ugly term).

She is excellent at bandying about the words that turn virtue vultures into mush, such as "justice" and "tolerance."

You can be sure she isn't talking about justice and tolerance as a general virtue. She means justice and tolerance for Palestinians – period.

An example of one-sided values popped up last week when Egypt's Foreign Ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador to complain that an Israeli TV comedian had "ridiculed" Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Could it be that Mubarak is a fan of Israeli television?

I can understand. When I arrived in a hotel room in Aqaba, Jordan, the bellboy turned on the television and then let out a groan, "Oh, it's Egyptian."

That was obvious from the fat tears of anguish being shed by the actors, a plump woman and a mustachioed man. It was a typical tearjerker Egyptian movie.

The bellboy quickly changed channels, and announced, "This is from Israel." Not that I'm enamored of Israeli TV, but it's all relative.

What spiked Mubarak's anger was Israeli satirist Eli Yitzpan's impersonation of the Egyptian. Of course, Yitzpan is an equal-opportunity satirist, who does a job on any and all politicians. As I see it, being the subject of satire is a politician's greatest contribution to society.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry complained to the Israeli ambassador that Yitzpan was guilty of "seriously besmirching the honor" of Mubarak.

Like "justice" and "tolerance" from Ashrawi's lips, "honor" goes only one way.

Egyptian incitement against Israel and Jews knows no limit. Not only does Egypt deny the Holocaust, but recently, an Egyptian newspaper carried a full-page photomontage of Shimon Peres in a Nazi uniform.

The government voice in Al-Ahram newspaper repeatedly reports that Jews use Arab blood to make matzah. Besides being a loony statement, it certainly doesn't show "honor" to any other religion, or even simple tolerance.

Curiously, for years an Israeli political satire TV program using puppets, a program that was devastatingly funny, regularly ran its Hafez Assad and Arafat puppets. I can't imagine Israeli TV getting into Syria, but there were no complaints from Arafat.

But then he's always flying off somewhere and surely never has time to watch Israeli TV.

And who in the Palestinian Authority would dare to tell him?

Arlynn Nellhaus is a former Denver Post reporter now based in Jerusalem, and the author of Into the Heart of Jerusalem, and a freqent contributor to The Idler.