When Joe Biden was declared the winner of the US presidential election last November, expectations in Ramallah were high. A Biden administration, in contrast to the brazenly pro-Israel Trump leadership, would surely be much fairer to Palestinians, the thinking went at the time.

The pro-Israel crowd on social media was quick to pounce on Sally Rooney after the award-winning Irish novelist declared that she had “chosen not to sell translation rights of her best-selling novel ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’ to an Israeli-based publishing house.”

Language is politics and politics is power. This is why the misuse of language is particularly disturbing, especially when the innocent and vulnerable pay the price.

A quarter of a century before Israel was established on the ruins of historic Palestine, Russian Jewish Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky argued that a Jewish state in Palestine could only survive if it existed “behind an iron wall” of defense.

For 20 years, two dominant narratives have shaped our view of the illegal US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and neither of these narratives would readily accept the use of such terms as “illegal,” “invasion” and “occupation.”

The killing of four young Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Aug. 16 is a consequential event, the repercussions of which are sure to be felt in the coming weeks and months.