We often encounter two parties that have hostile relations or are at war, both calling their opponent by their name. Many, for example, saw the Soviet Union as a cloak that Russia hid behind and the Ottoman Empire as a cover for Türkiye, and they believed that these states enslaved entire peoples. Nonetheless, this conviction did not prevent the critics from using the terms "Soviet Union" and "Ottoman Empire."
When Ronald Reagan used the term "Evil Empire" to describe the Soviet Union, and George W. Bush later used the term "Axis of Evil" to describe Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, those with more delicate sensibilities in the west mocked them and called this rhetoric vulgar.
Indeed, entities have the right to name themselves, regardless of how accurately their name reflects reality. Whoever chooses a name for himself obliges others to use that name when addressing or referring to him. On top of that, one can critique or question the appropriateness and validity of a name, or challenge the intention behind it, without proceeding to change that name.
Let us recall, for instance, that Kim Jong Un's state in North Korea is called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea," and that there are dozens of parties whose names include the word "democratic" or "socialist", but oppose both concepts. Rather, let us remember that we all have names with positive connotations, but do not necessarily embody the connotations of our names.
During the Cold War, a method for circumventing the obligation of naming by hastily adding a negative epithet was developed. Thus, hawks would immediately add "atheist" and "destructive" after mentioning the word "communism," while "capitalism" was the "capitalism of plunder and theft." The adjective was tasked with effacing the name, as the person adding it hurried to paternalistically guide the reader and listener for fear that they might accept the opponent's self-image, and to symbolically banish the imagined specters arising from their enmity. Some still see labels like "right-wing,left-wing," and "liberal" as magical and enchanted terms that must be curtailed to prevent them from becoming enchanting ones.
In intellectual circles, it is particularly rare to see someone acknowledging that his rival with an opposing opinion is an intellectual like himself. The latter "claims to be an intellectual" or is a "so-called intellectual," if not an agent or, spy, or a sick individual consumed by some neurosis. In this, we find a sort of assault on what has become an extension of the name, or a second name - an assault that betrays disdain for pluralism and a refusal to acknowledge that intellectuals, like people in general, see and interpret matters in infinitely different ways.
A mix of remnants of paganism and modern ideologies, whether atheistic or religious, likely stands behind the avoidance of the name through the epithet. However, terms like "Great Satan,Little Satan," and "absolute evil" tell us more about the party using them and its flippancy than the party being referred to and its flaws.
Although there have always been very valid reasons to hate Israel and condemn its brutality, the place occupied by names and adjectives in our confrontations with it remains noteworthy. For decades, the term "alleged entity" prevailed, creating the impression that the entity behind all our defeats and disasters was an alleged entity; i.e., that its existence was in doubt, something that only small children with very low intelligence could believe.
However, "alleged" eventually fell out of use. It was replaced by terms that acknowledge Israel’s existence but emphasize its extreme adjectives over its existence. It became the "Zionist enemy," or the "occupying,expansionist," and "rapistentity." In this linguistic-political system, anyone who uses the term "Israel," even to unequivocally condemn it, is believed to be incriminating himself and inviting many to question his patriotism.
If countries at war consider evading military service a criterion for condemnation and punishment, one of our criteria is using the word "Israel." That is, in reality, quite pitiful and revealing:
Since God names the world and everything in it through religious scripture, stringently rejecting the name "Israel" in favor of "the Zionist entity" is a claim to divine power, as they believe that their linguistic intervention has a tremendous impact on reality and the future.
However, this claim to divinity is coupled with astonishing fragility that fears the utterance of a particular word. It is not without flippancy and a limited sense of responsibility, if not childish, as it deludedly believes that it overcomes actual problems by rhetorically venting about a term and declaiming an alternative. In any case, this behavior seems geared towards giving the magical energy of words primacy over their semantic energy, and it is a step towards using demons and jinn to categorize the world.
This is not good news. It is preferable for those fighting to know that their adversary, who is incurring such heavy costs in battle, has a name. By referring to the adversary by their name, they would fight better, as they would not be distracted by a war of names or the expulsion of the demons supposedly contained within them.
