Not content with having razed thousands of Palestinian villages during the Nakba, converting the names of thousands of places from Arabic to Hebrew names, and now Judaizing Palestinian East Jerusalem, the incoming deputy chief of staff, Yair Naveh (whose security lapses allowed Anat Kamm to reproduce thousands of top secret IDF documents, for which he received no reprimand or even investigation), will be “converting” the names of Israeli checkpoints from their original Arabic to Hebrew names. For example, Nilin, the site of ferocious anti-Wall protests, will become Kiryat HaSefer. It reminds me of the kashering of one’s home before Pesach to ensure it will be pristine and pure for the coming holiday.
The IDF’s reasoning according to the Maariv story?
The Hebrew names will convey to Palestinians the message of Israeli control…It will also convey to the soldiers and border crossing personnel that they are not protecting a Palestinian area, but Israeli territory.
Yes, this is some of the bold, innovative strategic thinking we can expect out of the incoming regime of Yoav Galant and Yair Naveh. Name changes. That’s the key to IDF control of the Palestinians. The latter will certainly be cowed by this new development and undoubtedly it will have a deep impact on their very psyches.
Israel doesn’t merely occupy territory, it also occupies the linguistic space as well, attempting to “convert” place names from Muslim/Arabic to Jewish/Hebrew.
Richard do you have the link for this story?
Apologies. Of course & thanks for reminding me of my lapse:
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/174/850.html
But only in Hebrew since Maariv has no English lang. site.
Naming things creates a reality. You may not like the end, but it’s hard to argue with the effectivity of this step.
This correlates this with the custom of “Ivrut” (converting into Hebrew) of family names. For example my late father changed his family name from “Noimark” to “Nahir”. I’m glad he did.
The idea is that in this we cut our ties with a past that was forced on us and on our country.
Interestingly, I seem to recall that many Jews have changed their family names into gentile names when immigrating to the states. A cut with the past, this is.
Tone deaf as always. Destroying names and attempting to eradicate them attempts to create a reality & fails because it elicits huge levels of antagonism from those whose names & places are being stolen from them. Your father wanted to abandon his old identity. No Palestinian wants to do so. No Palestinian will allow this theft. None. You will never cut a Palestinian’s ties with his past. Never.
“Silverstein” is not a “gentile name” & once again I find the very notion insulting. It was a name given to me by my Jewish ancestors & I own it with pride.
And once again, you take insult where none was meant. I KNOW Silverstein is not a gentile name, and I was not referring to you. Addionally, I do not think that Jews or anyone else changing their names to better fit into their country is a bad thing.
I do. It’s yet another part of the shlilat ha-galut (negating the Exile or Diaspora) phenomenon. Jews from Galut have nothing to apologize for or feel inferior about. Their Diaspora identity is important and should be respected instead of drilled out of them. Zionism sought to rid the Jew of Galut, which was an atrocious mistake.
I wish, Richard, I could agree with your “Destroying names and attempting to eradicate them attempts to create a reality & fails”. Given enough time, alas – a major element in Israel’s propaganda arsenal – the progeny of smoke and mirrors tend to become a thus-has-it-always-been “truth” of creative history. I wonder what the Native American name once was for Kansas City?
# Norman)
I doubt Kansas City existed in pre-columbian America, but the word ‘Kansa’ comes from a Siouan language ONCE spoken by the Kaw.
And ‘Manhattan’ comes from the Lenape-language (also called Delaware by European settlers). “Mannahatta” means ‘Hilly Island’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_name_etymologies
And Palestine means the country of the Palestinians 🙂
Despite your gentle sarcasm, Pursuer of things Wikipedia, the land where KC now sits was there even during the Jurassic Age. Your wisdom apparently precludes your understanding a very simple observation regarding manipulations in order to make the unpalatable acceptable and inevitable.
We’re on the same side, folks. Remember that.
# weineb)
I guess your post is adressed to me though I hardly see any sarcasm in my post. It’s far too sophisticated for me to be sarcastic in English.
In fact, I’m not really pursuing things ‘wikipedia’ – as I told someone on the “Curse like a settler”-file on another Native Indian-related topic.
Concerning your “the land where KC now sits [ …] was there even during the Jurassic Age . . “:
Who said anything else ?? I surely didn’t. I was responding to Normans’s wondering on “what the Native American name once was for KANSAS CITY”.
Did you at least read that before talking about my ‘gentle sarcasm’ or were you really bothered by the ‘Palestine is the land of the Palestinians’ ?
And honestly, I don’t get a clue as far as your last sentence is concerned. It looks like a google-translation, but then again my native language is not English, either.
No, Palestine does not mean the country of the Palestinians, it was a name given to the geographical area, that once was Jewish-ruled, by the Roman conquerers and is a latin form for the land of the Philistines. The Philistines who originated probably from Crete, tried to conquer the land from the Israelites over many centuries, but failed to do so, and the Roman”s calling the land by this name was the ultimate insult to the vanquished Jewish nation.
I point this out, Deir Yassin, only because you claim not to know sarcasm in your English. I think you wern’t overly truthful when you stated your inability to understand sarcasm in English (?) (<:
# shmuel)
You’re right. I do understand and (mis)use sarcasm in English but if you find any sarcasm in my initial post, please tell me, I don’t see any.
You know, to me Palestine is the land of the Palestinians, call it Kana’an if you like, as France is the land of the French, Brazil the land of the Brazilians and as Israel SHOULD – at least – be the land of the Israelis, all of them. That’s all, I don’t care about ethnic or religious classifications as the base of nation-building, but then again, what do I understand about nationbuilding so I better go back to my cooking and needling.
Over and over again does it become apparent that the ultimate Zionist goal, aided and abetted by religious interpretations and concerns, is simply to acquire by various means and hold in perpetuity the land conveniently and religiously called Judea and Samaria. Whether through the well-planned 1967 land-grab or through more subtle legal, quasi-legal, and simply illegal means, perhaps going even as far back as the post-World War I period, an utterly cynical policy of seize-hold-rationalize-rename unto the end of time and memory represents the modus operandi that belies any claim Israel might make regarding a just peace. This latest Tikun Olam post is yet another proof – there are countless such – of all this. In today’s Haaretz we can read a piece by Nir Hasson that “shows the state used a controversial law to transfer East Jerusalem assets to the rightist organizations Elad and Ateret Cohanim without a tender, and at very low prices.” Etc.
What an infuriating picture.
I agree. Of course, the Palestinian should be stripped to verify he’s not carrying a bomb – even I myself am checked (though, of course, not asked to take my trousers of) every time I enter my local mall, and I’m an old, harmless looking Jew. However – as no bomb appears to have been found in this case – this Palestinian he should not be photographed and the photo should not be published, especially not in a site like this that cares for human dignity!
Oh my. I should protect the dignity of this poor Palestinian boy for the sake of the Israel apologist who doesn’t like to display a picture of an IDF soldier pointing a loaded gun at a stripped defenseless boy. And you’re doing it purely for the boy’s dignity, how touching. Spare me before I’m sick…
Next time you’re at the mall I hope they make you strip to yr skivvies & I hope someone takes a picture of you. Then you’ll know the terror & confusion felt by this boy.
Your hypocrisy provokes me to display another far more troubling picture of Palestinian degradation at the hands of the occupier. And you can put that next photo where the sun don’t shine if you don’t like it.
And do they point a gun at you as well Avi?
As to the publication of such pictures: I cannot agree with you as I think such pictures should me made public as they show what reality is like.
One picture I saw that I will never be able to erase from my mind was of a crying and terrfied Jewish woman in Germany in the thirties being stripped naked on the streat by a gang of jeering women.
I do not think it would be a good idea to prohibit the publication of this picture, no matter how degrading it is to the woman involved (no doubt murdered long ago), because it serves to educate present generations on what the Jews had to endure during the Nazi regime.
Can you understand this?
The Arabs also changed the names of every city in the country when they invaded and plopped mosques down on every other religion’s holy sites. But i suppose since that happened “before” Israel its ok.
And the Israelites exterminated the Moabites, Amalekites, etc in their conquest of ancient Israel. You don’t lose much sleep over that do you?