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March 06, 2017, 02:54:34 AM |
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Fun fact: Did you know that Daesh is a derogatory term for ISIS, and they hate being called that?
World leaders have taken to calling ISIS “Daesh,” a word the Islamic State hates. Since the attacks in Paris, both John Kerry and François Hollande have used it. The Kurdish militants battling ISIS in Iraq already use the term regularly, though they risk losing their tongues by uttering it.
Daesh is an acronym. It stands for the Arabic name of the Islamic State: al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. When Jen Percy, a New Republic contributor, went to northern Iraq this year, the Assyrian Christians waging a war against ISIS were calling ISIS troops “Daesh.” In her article for our September issue, she called it “a pejorative term for ISIS in Arabic.”
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