Israeli Officials' Calls For 'Voluntary' Migration Of Palestinians Alarm Human Rights Experts

[Igel]

4. Most Americans probably think "ghetto" has a single meaning.

That would be the American Heritage Dictionary's first definition:

A usually poor section of a city inhabited primarily by people of the same race, religion, or social background, often because of discrimination.

For most of my kids' "inhabited primarily by people of the same race, religion, or social background" really just means "primarily black people of the same black race, maybe a religion, and poor background". Noun, adjective, whatever. It's morphing into a generic putdown, "That'('s) ghetto." Usage is ethnicity-independent, but there may be a skew in frequency.

I'm going to say that for most Israeli's not of recent US immigration status, "ghetto" means the 2nd and 3rd definitions:

2. An often walled quarter in a European city to which Jews were restricted beginning in the Middle Ages.
3.Something that resembles the restriction or isolation of a city ghetto.

Where (3) is the historical definition extended just a bit.

I mean, the spelling tells us that it's an obviously Italian word. It was metaphorical when applied to US cities and the metaphorical definition's come to be the new primarily definitions. (Lexical extension, shift, then later restriction.)

Yeah, in many respects Gaza is a ghetto (3). Then again, refugee camps in Lebanon and Egypt are also ghettoes, as long as citizenship isn't bestowed and work permits required for their residents.