The wall or the fence. How you choose to refer to the controversial security barrier Israel is building in the West Bank instantly betrays which side of it you stand on, writes Nuala Haughey.
The dispute over how to describe the structure is the latest episode in a long tradition of linguistic sparring here. Both sides vie for control of the lexicon of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the battle for the hearts and minds of public opinion worldwide.
Almost every point of political contention comes with its own highly charged vocabulary, and newcomers could be forgiven for feeling as addled as Alice at the March Hare's tea party.
A few examples of the verbal somersaults daily performed by both sides: If you speak to a West Bank or Gaza settler, often they will shy away from using that term to define themselves. Their settlements, regarded internationally as illegally built on occupied land, become sanitised to merely "neighbourhoods" or benign "communities".
Nor, when settlers refer to "the territories", do they prefix the word with the adjectives "occupied" or "Palestinian", despite the fact that the phrase "Occupied Palestinian Territories" is widely accepted internationally and appears in successive United Nations resolutions.
In May 2003 when the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said the idea of keeping 3.5 million Palestinians under "occupation" was the worst thing for Israel, he was fiercely attacked domestically. Israelis studiously avoid the O-word. The official position is that both Israel and the Palestinians have claims to the land and that its future status must be negotiated. Those opposed to the term "occupied territories" say the phrase is historically inaccurate and is levelled against the Jewish state as an accusation.
They berate the world community for its inconsistency in describing other contested regions in the world as "disputed" territory, a much more neutral term. To call the West Bank and Gaza occupied, they argue, also confers legitimacy on terrorists who can claim to be "resisting" the occupation.
The Israeli right argues that Israel even has a legitimate claim on the territories for religious and security reasons. Israelis commonly do not refer at all to the territories as the West Bank, preferring to use the more historical designation of Judea and Samaria to describe this region west of the Jordan River where Palestinians live.
Meanwhile, on the other side of this language barrier, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas refuses to mention Israel by name. It does not recognise the right of the Jewish state to exist at all. Hamas brands the state of Israel "the Zionist entity", while the Israeli military is called the "Zionist occupation forces" or "Zionist invasion troops".
Palestinian violence is praised in verbose and colourful language by its proponents, with suicide bombers eulogised as heroic martyrs engaged in a holy war. Israelis, however, refer to them as terrorists.
Palestinian atrocities, in which innocent civilians are slaughtered inside Israel, are euphemistically referred to by their supporters as "resistance operations".
On the Israeli side, some deliberately avoid the term "suicide bomber" (and the assassin is never recorded in Israeli death tolls from attacks), preferring to replace it with "homicide bomber", downplaying the role of the assailant.
The Israeli military has coined some gems of its own to describe its operations in the territories. The army refers to "exposure operations" to describe the uprooting of crops and the demolition of greenhouses in Palestinian areas of Gaza surrounding settlements to ensure there is no cover for attacks. And air force strikes on Palestinian terrorists are "targeted killings", even though these extra-judicial assassinations invariably lead to the death of innocent bystanders.
So, back to the security barrier, or should that be the "so-called" security barrier? Israel has for months referred to the structure as a "security fence", aimed at preventing Palestinian terrorist attacks. In recent months, however, officials here have started calling the structure an "anti-terrorist fence", presumably because the description is more hard-edged and active. Palestinians, on the other hand, call it an apartheid wall, a Nazi wall and another Berlin wall.
As Israeli officials never tire of pointing out to us journalists, under 5 per cent of the structure is actually a concrete wall. For the most part, it is a network of mesh fence topped with barbed wire, electronic sensors, patrol roads, lookout posts, trenches, and crossing points.
The United Nations General Assembly, in its request to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, on the legality of the barrier, chose to describe it as a wall, a choice of terminology which Israel has branded as "clearly propagandist". The judges, who concluded hearing testimony yesterday, will no doubt be acutely aware that the words they use in their judgment will provide more verbal fodder for this raging propaganda war.