Genocide, terrorism, totalitarianism. Three harsh and horrifying words that remind us of the war in Gaza. These are fat words that are often used lightly. The sad Palestinian news allows us to talk about terminological debates. There have been few journalists and politicians who have acted cynically. First of all, they said that Hamas is a terrorist group and they have strongly condemned their attacks, but then, without any shame, they said that Israel has the right to defend itself, to exercise violence and to exterminate the Arabs.

This same debate often occurs in academia. Historians, political scientists and sociologists, among others, need the most precise, analytical terms to conduct our research, in order to define what we want to investigate or explain as rigorously as possible. But some of the words used have connotations that become more valuable than analytics. Some historians who have researched the latest cycle of violence in Euskal Herria, for example, have considered the Abertzale left not only as a terrorist, but also as a totalitarian.

The concept of terrorism was first used by the monarchists of the French revolution to denounce the revolutionary government of Robespier. By definition, terrorism is an act that uses terror or terror to achieve political objectives. If this is strictly used, we can hear absurd statements: ‘The terrorist group ETA used terror to combat a terrorist dictatorship’; ‘The terrorist group Hamas attacks the Israeli terrorist state’. In my humble opinion, that word that is used in a rush has no capacity to explain absolutely nothing, at least in academia. Has the Israeli army not provoked more terrors than Sixteen? This terminological asymmetry is probably related to the different nature of the two sides. Israel has a regular and state army and Palestine does not. Israel is an ally of the West and Hamas is not.

After the use of the word terrorism, rather than analytical rigour, there is a will to mark a moral judgment. Journalists, researchers and politicians using this word are telling the listener or the reader what is sincere and what is bad in this conflict. He's basically being told what he has to think.

If we were to give a word to what is happening, it is genocide. The concept was invented in 1944 by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin. The UN defined it as: Acts carried out with the aim of "totally or partially destroying a national, ethnic, racial or religious group", as well as those which the Government of Israel intends to carry out with the Arabs recognized by them. Often terror!