Lowy

Allie Lowy
Ms. Melissa Kaplan
AP Language
18 May 2015

The Death of Language (by Negligence)

For the past decade, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have been a breeding
ground for tensions between Israelis and Palestinians as the enduring conflict that began
shortly after Israel gained its statehood has intensified. One instance in which
confrontations turned violent occurred in October 2002, when an Israel Defense Forces
(IDF) officer shot and killed Mohammed Zeid, a Palestinian teenager. The officer was
charged with causing "death by negligence" and sentenced to only six months in prison.
Shortly after the officer's conviction, Naomi Shibah Nye, an American poet with
Palestinian roots, penned the poem "For Mohammed Zeid of Gaza, Age 15" in response
to the media's portrayal of the officer's actions as inadvertent and negligent. Through her
comparison of a bullet to natural entities that epitomize innocence and her refutation of
the idea that a bullet's direction is indefinite and uncertain in nature, Nye indicts the
media for its complacency in the language it uses to euphemize violence, in an effort to
urge the media to describe death in an honest and precise manner.
By contrasting a bullet with innocent elements of nature in order to highlight the
inaccuracy of characterizing a bullet as stray, Nye derides the media for softening its
language when addressing violence, urging journalists to describe violence with more
accuracy and precision. Nye claims that there is no such thing as a "stray bullet," framing

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her argument by citing examples of what should be considered stray. To be stray, Nye
holds, is to be lost, like a "worried cat crouching under a bush" (2) or "half-hairless puppy
dodging midnight streets" (4). By evoking images of abandoned animals -- innocent,
harmless creatures without a clear purpose or direction -- Nye illustrates that a bullet, on
the other hand, is anything but innocent. Nye elicits sympathy for the innocuous, stray
animals, and, by contrast, argues that the shooter of a bullet -- which is harmful,
purposeful, and directional -- should be held accountable. Shooters, Nye argues -- like the
IDF officer who killed Zeid -- often do not face sufficient consequences and are "granted
immunity" (21) for their actions. Nye ascribes the lack of accountability for
indiscriminate violence to the softened language that the media employs to discuss death.
The media's tendency to euphemize violence -- rendering a shooting a "friendly fire" or
"straying death-eye" (22) -- trivializes death, and, in turn, absolves the shooter of blame
for his actions, according to Nye.
Nye logically disproves the characterization of a bullet as wandering and
inadvertent, grounding her claim in examples of uncertainty in the human character, to
chide the media for its misuse of language and ultimately encourage the media to employ
precise and accurate language to discuss death. Humans, Nye intimates, are indefinite and
incomplete by nature, with wandering ideas, lingering thoughts, and unfinished "tasks
abandoned midstream" (13). Because it is human nature to be noncommittal and
indecisive, Nye argues, our language mirrors our inherent ambivalence and uncertainty.
Nye contends that we, as a society, "feel at home among bits and pieces" (13) because of
our familiarity with uncertainty, but we are not comfortable with the definitiveness of a
bullet, so we lighten our language to provide ourselves with a sense of comfort and

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safety. Nye subtly indicts the media for its tendency to "gentle" (11) its language when
discussing violence to placate society, prioritizing comfort over truth, which, in effect,
obscures the truth and undermines the gravity of death. Nye intimates that, while there is
a certain naivet in uncertainty and indecision, with which we are comfortable, a bullet is
purposeful, definitive and powerful in nature -- shot with the intent to inflict harm -- and,
thus, we should not feel comfortable with the violence inflicted by a bullet, which has "no
innocence" whatsoever. Following her condemnation of the media for its complacency in
its use of language, Nye asserts that "Mohammed deserves the truth" (24), illustrating that
euphemizing senseless violence not only belittles the significance of death, but does not
do innocent victims of wartime violence justice.
To conclude, by contrasting a bullet with innocent natural entities and debunking
the claim that a bullet's trajectory is indefinite in nature, Nye condemns the media for its
indolence in its use of language in order to inspire the media to describe death precisely
and honestly. As a poet, Nye's mission is to convey as much meaning as possible in as
few words as possible, carefully choosing each word for its evocativeness and precision,
as is the nature of her craft. The Israeli-Gaza conflict is as much a battle in the hearts and
minds of the people, shaped by the language journalists employ, as it is a battle in the
streets; thus, it is incumbent upon journalists to choose their weapons carefully.