this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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What do you think of the following terms?

  1. People of Gaza

  2. Gazans

I've been using "Gazans". It feels natural for me to use demonym even though "people of Gaza" has its supporters. For example - I assume Norman Finkelstein always uses "people of Gaza" and never "Gazans" in writing. And when he speaks it's probably the same.

A couple times in the bulletin stickies I used the non-term "West Bankers" because for me "Palestinians in the West Bank" is such an unnaturalistic mouthful.

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I wish there was a second form of double quotation marks just for text so it's clear the words in quotes aren't being used as "scare quotes" or in an "ironic" way.

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About the photo. It's from a 6 year-old article titled...

Gaza City in the spotlight: hesitant hope in a city where everyone still wants out

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[–] Frank@hexbear.net 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Purely personally, i think either works. I like "people of" or "x people" because i think it removes a level of abstraction to actually say "people". Like i usually say " Jewish People" instead of Jews, or "Hadza People" instead of Hadza as I think it pre-empts dehumanization of the other.

Re: west bank, i'm trying to learn and remember which towns actually comprise the west bank but i'm not doing a very good job.