this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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It's subtle but I agree with her on this. Families vs people embeds different connotations. Families necessarily imply interpersonal connection, and for a great many subconsciously conjure children and love.
People does not.
I don't expect the level of awareness of the distinction from the general population. A politician who spent decades with the highest skilled professional communication crafters on the planet, they know exactly the difference
That smacks of hypercritical, partial reading drawing unnecessary inferences.
From context, the simpler, more plausible explanation is choices driven to convey a logical distinction: only some Israelis (families of hostages) suffered whereas all Gazans (the entire people) suffered. The context recalls key phrases to elaborate: he writes about hostages "reunited with their families" & aide "reaching those inside Gaza whose lives have been shattered".
I would love to live in your world where politicians choose thier words based on logical simplicity rather than rhetorical value.
She's definitely not wrong but, to me, it seems obvious that it's capturing the level of scope. The hostages affect the families to which those hostages belonged but it's the entirety of Gaza that was being attacked and starved (and, hence, the entire people).
Granted, dehumanization doesn't have to follow any logic to get kicked off and the wording could still have that effect, nonetheless.