63 years ago today, before the Arab armies had entered Palestine, and before Israel had declared its independence, Zionist militias were engaged in the conquest and ethnic cleansing of dozens of villages, from Abu al-Fadl near present-day Ramle to Akbara, which was 2 kilometers south of Safed. This week, as Palestinians plan to observe the formal anniversary of their dispossession on May 15, or “Nabka Day,” the Jerusalem Post’s Benjamin Speier reported that Israeli soldiers from the 202 paratrooper battalion “put their skills into action by conquering a simulation Arab village.”
“Each platoon needs to likhbush [conquer] an area in the village, and we get to likhbush an area called Yassin, south Yassin,” said company commander Matan Pelen. After the exercise was completed, Pelen commented, “This area is now ours, it’s under our control.”
Whether or not the Israeli army is training to literally seize a village and expel its residents, the reliance by modern day Israelis on a colonial vocabulary exposes the state’s essential mission. When Israelis refer to the occupation of the West Bank, they use the term “kibush,” or the conquest, underscoring the permanence of the settlement project across the 1949 Armistice Line and its connection to the military campaign of ethnic cleansing that enabled the Jewish state to emerge in 1948.
The language of conquest emerged through the ideologues of early Zionism. The early Zionists labeled their campaign to Judaize the marketplace by boycotting Arab businesses and terrorizing Jews who employed or patronized Arabs, "Kibush Ha'avodah," or the conquest of labor.
The Zionist internalization of anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews as rootless cosmopolitans (or excessively contemplative Luftmenschen) prompted the “Kibush Ha’adamah,” the conquest of the land, and “Likhbush et Ha’adamah ba’Raglyim,” a phrase that means to conquer the land by foot. Besides expelling as many Palestinian Arabs as possible, these efforts were intended to encourage the New Jews to purge their diaspora contaminations through agricultural pursuits, physical labor and perpetual building.
Conquest is inscribed in the logic of Zionism. While Israeli political and military leaders resist any initiative to constrain the state’s expansionist impulses, Palestinian villages quietly disappear from the landscape. Just as the “kibush” remains continuous, so does the Nakba.
Last week, on May 6, Israeli authorities ordered 50 Palestinian families to leave Jerusalem. A day later, Israeli forces expelled 110 Palestinians from Khirbet Umm Nir, a small village south of the occupied city of Hebron. The village was destroyed for the third time in two months.
This post originally appeared on Max Blumenthal's blog.
“63 years ago today, before the Arab armies had entered Palestine, and before Israel had declared its independence, Zionist militias were engaged in the conquest and ethnic cleansing of dozens of villages”
It is important to remember this. More or less defenseless villages were attacked, people murdered, and survivors driven out PRIOR to any “Arab armies.”
“Each platoon needs to likhbush [conquer] an area in the village, and we get to likhbush an area called Yassin ….”
Yassin, as in Deir Yassin? The site of a pivotal massacre where a “friendly” village was massacred to let the Palestinians know in no uncertain terms that the Zionist Jews did not want to live in peace with Arabs, rather, they wanted the Arabs out of Palestine. The massacre that started the panic which resulted in a huge exodus of fleeing, terrified Palestinians. Those later trying to return were killed, or otherwise driven away.
“The Zionist internalization of anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews as rootless cosmopolitans (or excessively contemplative Luftmenschen) ….”
For a delightful cartoon rendition of this phenomenon, click the link below to view Israel man and Diaspora boy.
link to evcomics.com
seting up a nakba simulation village panics a colonial entity such that it panics and sends in the storm-troopers?
chasing away a shadow?
or their worst nightmare?
the truth getting out
that they’re the victimizers
the palestinians being the victims
Max, the proper translation of ‘likhbosh’ in the way used here, would be simply ‘to take.’ As in, ‘your platoon is in charge of taking that hill.’ Where ‘conquer’ would be a little high falutin’ or dramatic in English, the Hebrew verb covers both high and low, broad or narrow connotations.
Your other points make enough sense, but as you are neither a native Hebrew speaker nor a linguistics expert, you should simply make your points without resorting to those specialties.
One could easily argue that just as the meaning of Jewish physical labor and farming were intrinsic to early conceptions of Zionism but disappeared with nary a peep from the establishment, just as Kibbutzim were privatized and Palestinian labor allowed to displace Jews from construction and agriculture (to be followed by foreign workers), so other elements might well disappear without challenging the self identity of Israelis.
Zionism without Jewish farming? Zionism that depends on a superpower for protection? Zionism that abandons the Kibbutz? Zionism that celebrates high tech instead of the muscular New Jew? Zionism with no Labor Zionism? Then maybe a Zionism without further conquest is just around the corner. I’d rather encourage such a transformation than preserve the old forms.
Today A.D. Gordon and Ahad Ha’am spin in their graves with horror at the modern state of Israel. Maybe tomorrow Ben-Gurion (who opposed keeping the OT) and Jabotinsky will spin as well. Inshallah!
But, that would be a false equivalent.
So-called “Jewish” labor that disappeared — although it still exists — from the Kibbutz, did not undermine the livelihood and survival of the average Jewish citizen.
By contrast, taking away land from Palestinians, and subsidizing Jewish farmers destroyed the agricultural base that Palestinians had maintained. And when they were forced to become a labor force, lacking an industrial or agricultural economic base, they were at the mercy of the state as they had no access to high ranking/high paying professional jobs that Jews in the state had, jobs from which the Palestinians were excluded due to discrimination.
So, the comparison is false as I’m sure you realize.
Incidentally, neither are you. It’s interesting how both you and eee develop a keen sense of attention to detail when the subject matter involves Israel, but somehow manage to paint with a broom when the subject matter is Palestinians/Arabs. And yet, that doesn’t stop you from making such points “without resorting to those specialties”. But, that’s another story for another day, right?
By the way, Max Blumenthal’s article makes the distinction between seizing and conquering land. He clearly understands the distinction. Read the article again.
However, your knee-jerk reaction seems to be an attempt to divert attention from the main topic by wheeling in your red-herring of linguistic proportions. It’s like a magician’s slight of hand, Look here, yes, over here at this hand (while I quickly slip this coin into my pocket with my other hand).
Nice try, clenchy.
I keep wondering about your purpose on this website. For every honest comment you make, you seem to litter with 10 dishonest comments. Are you playing hard to get? Do you think readers appreciate the mystery?
“… I keep wondering about your purpose on this website.”
Avi, we already knew that the Israel’s MFA has hasbara squads doing the rounds on blogs and forums but Helena Cobban was asking herself the same question and she stumbled on to something techno that may explain the sudden rash of posters; she wrote:
“More recently, over the past couple of months, we’ve had had an infestation of “commenters” coming here announcing not only an alleged name but also an alleged hometown. What was going on, I wondered?
Then I read this recent article in the Guardian, about a project the U.S. military has to try to “sway the discourse” in various online venues by flooding them with an army of sock puppeteers, each of whom would be ‘controlling’ numerous sock puppets.”
Under a project called “Operation Earnest Voice”, Centcom signed a contract with a California-based company called Ntrepid to provide software that would allow each of up to 50 operators to control ten fake online personas, each apparently based in a different place around the world… so it would seem that the Centcom-favored point of view has 500 supporters located all over the world! Wow!
Now, the Centcom contract was specifically only for commenters working in languages other than English. But if Ntrepid can provide that service for Centcom, why should it (or a similar company) not provide a similar English-language service for another client– say, some part of the IDF?Israeli government worldwide hasbara machine?
Why do I suspect this is what is happening with all these extremely goofy (one might even say “earnest”) commenters here at JWN who announce their names and hometowns? Because, according to the Guardian report,
The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details…
And then, if you are sitting there at your desk, posting comments through your multiple sock puppets under some kind of Ntrepid-related contract– hey, maybe one operator on these other, non-Centcom contracts, could be controlling more than ten sock puppets!– then the challenge is, as the puppeteer, how on earth you keep track of each one (and his or her, “convincing background, history and supporting details… “)? Welcome to the strange and wonderful world of “Roy Frank Tremont. Pine Bluff, AR”, “Winston Overbrook, Seattle”, “Bernard Weintraub, Taos, NM”, etc.
These guys are all so clunky, you have to laugh. I suppose they are successful up to a point, in that they render the comments boards a bit more muddled, hostile, and bothersome than they would otherwise be. But really, their comedic value counters that effect significantly.
A word to all those sock puppeteers out there, however. Your activities may well constitute criminal impersonation, so you might want to check your liability to prosecution under U.S. law.”
(Posted May 3, 2011)
link to justworldnews.org
Typical lefty arrogance. It is not possible that others can have their own and different opinion about the issues in the Middle East. They must be some kind of puppet or someone paid/manipulated to post on sites like this.
As for you Walid, you might spend a bit more time looking at the train wreck that is the Arab/Muslim world before you look at Israel which by all measures is a huge success story.
“….Israel which by all measures is a huge success story.”
Who’s doing your measuring, LLL? Don’t be shy. Give us your sources.
how is Israel a success story? anyone could have succeded with all the gifts they were given.
Didn’t somebody write about attitudes like that? Oh, that’s right. Now I remember.
(And they make the trains run on time, too!)
LLI, when I posted that thing to Avi about the hasbarists by Helena Cobban, I didn’t have clenchner in mind but was thinking of guys like you, eee, hophmi, Guilty Feat and the rest of the gang.
As to your description of the Arab and Muslim world, I would have used harsher words to describe it. But your description of Israel was way off the mark; from where I’m standing a country that is built on the ruins of another through theft and killing is nothing to be proud of. I much prefer being part of group referred to as a train wreck than of one referred to as thieves.
Wotzamatter longlive? Walid’s analysis got you nervous? Or are you one of them vacuous fools who trolls free of charge?
I reckon people round the world will take their noses outta israel’s business soon as israel takes it’s jackboot off Palestine’s neck and gives back stolen land PLUS reparations.
Till then, stfu ’bout what kinda business you think goy should be interested in.
link to startupnationbook.com
For example, between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the U.S. Saudis registered 171. Israelis registered 7,652.
Israel absorbed millions of immigrants from extremely diverse populations despite being in a constant state of war.
Israel has a multitude of parties represented politically, including a communist party and parties of those who are virulently anti-israel.
link to youtube.com
On this planet, being the world’s largest aid recipient doesn’t usually pass for a sign of success.
I thought it was anti-Semitic to point out that Jewish men may be exerting any sort of disproportionate influence on US government agencies, like the patent office.
Or are you taking the argument that Israeli Jews are reinrassig and the strength of your reich’s economy is proof of your superiority?
Jordan has absorbed millions more refugees than Israel. Considering Jordan has had to absorb refugees from both Israeli and US occupations.
Americans want those high-tech jobs you stole from us, by the way. Handing over the spies that stole all that industrial and classified government information would be nice, too.
“built on the ruins of another through theft and killing”
Which country is/was that? Why would the UN partition the British Mandated are called Palestine (after they chopped a good part of it off and handed it to the Hashemites) if there was already a country there? I don’t think you can name too many countries that don’t have a history of blood and conquest and that certainly includes the Muslims. Even Spain starts to mouth off at times about Israel, a country the butchered our people as well as millions all over the world.
Finally, Walid, that is a cop out to say that you recognize the train wreck that is the Arab/Muslim world, but no one does/says anything about it. Other than a bit from you and Seham, I don’t see one of the so-called peace lovers here saying anything about what is happening in Syria. I never see articles here about how women are treated in Saudi Arabia.
Grant F. Smith has completely debunked Startup Nation.
On April 6, Grant F. Smith presented a comprehensive review of the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement to the Finance and Economics Council at the University of Rochester. Using a slide show of declassified documents and charts, Smith revealed how secret agreements and a joint Israeli embassy/AIPAC covert operation undermined US industries and the trade negotiating process. New quantitative analysis and disclosures reveal the US-Israel trade agreement is actually a $10 billion/year foreign aid program. Smith also discusses how major omissions in Dan Senor and Saul Singer’s 2009 Council on Foreign Relations book Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle undermine their two major findings: that perpetual conflict gives Israel a comparative advantage and that the US should reinstate conscription in order to match Israel’s entrepreneurial output.
See video here:
link to vimeo.com
Grant F. Smith discuss the Israel lobby’s appetite for acquiring and circulating classified US national defense information based on newly released documents from the Rosen v. AIPAC defamation lawsuit. They also discuss why there are so few warranted prosecutions of high ranking Americans committing crimes to advance Israeli interests in the United States.
Jewish immigrants.
Israel has a multitude of parties represented politically, including a communist party and parties of those who are virulently anti-israel.
If they are Israeli parties, they can’t be anti-israel, they are simply anti Likudnik.
Ooooh… do you mean like how women have to sit at the back of the bus, cover their hair and have to deal with modesty police assailing them if they break social mores?
Oh. Are we talking about Saudi Arabia, or Israel? I forgot.
Train wreck my arse.
I have to laugh when someone refers to the ME as a train wreck, as though what we call the West has existed in its current form for a millenia. Sorry, no. Rewind a hundred years ago and women’s, gay and minority rights didn’t exist at all. Women would be lucky to have even had a vote, and hardly any of those battles (full equality for minorities) have been won yet in Western countries. The “civilised” West was about to plunge the world into two wars that cost more than 100 million lives and detour into dangerous experiments with communism & fascism that cost tens of millions more lives. Colonialism was still the order of the day.
And oh, America. The pubescent teen among nations who has never had it’s sovereignty violated sufficiently to understand the importance of a nation’s borders. Imagine if every country reacted as badly as America did every time 3,000 of it’s citizens were killed. Shit – Israel has killed that many Gazans since it supposedly withdrew in 2005. No America, you aren’t needed or wanted to rule the world. And “train wreck” best sums up the US & Israel today, that I see.
I agree with you Walid, it’s better to be labelled as part of a train wreck than a thief, but the first label is inappropriate. In the midst of the arab spring – what train wreck? It took the west 1000 years to get from the Magna Carta to today. ME countries have had their autonomy for less that a century.
From Tahrir Square: You are an [arab], hold your head high!
Walid, in the Internet Age a little paranoia goes a long way.
Thanks for the Grant F. Smith link Shingo.
I think the link might be:
link to vimeo.com
From the URL I’m guessing you sent the link from your mobile; when I clicked on it on a laptop browser it just took me to Vimeo’s browser… About to watch it now!
Avi, once again you prove you simply don’t know who I am, yet feel obsessed with trying to articulate things about me – as opposed simply responding to what I’ve said.
What’s with this search for clenchner’s identity?
If you are saying that aspects of Zionism that are especially harmful to Palestinians are more essential than aspects that are Palestinian neutral, then fine. But…. that’s just your opinion. There isn’t some definition you get to look up that demonstrates why my comparison is false but yours or Max’s is correct.
Making false or speculative statements about Zionism or Israeli culture makes peace and a just resolution harder to achieve. Much the same way, blanket, misleading and hostile comments about Palestinian nationalism make peace harder to achieve. I’m guilty of applying the same standards to this camp that I do to anyone else. (Though, anti-Palestinian posts generally don’t appear here, except by commenters.)
It’s kind of like the New Yorker’s crossword puzzle. After I have finished reading a Seymour Hersh article, I entertain myself with a little crossword puzzle-solving.
Mine and Max Blumenthal’s are correct because they both look at reality however, yours seems to be taken out of a Harry Potter book.
Exactly. And that is why I suggest you heed your own advice.
Faux self-criticism, eh? It’s a nice touch.
Give J. K. Rowling some credit. She writes fiction but she writes good fiction. Zionist mythology reads like a crappy Saturday morning cartoon.
“Avi, once again you prove you simply don’t know who I am,”
So why don’t you tell us who you are? Your full name, your address, and some checkable biographical details would be a start.
Whoops, I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten what a faux pas</i. it is to ask a Zionist for verifiable information. I forgot about the Zionist ethics which states that if you squat on something (like this website, moocher) it becomes yours.
Like, to take someone’s home. Or, to take someone’s life.
I don’t know if you watched the video, but did you recognize the rules of engagement shown? All entry into houses were prefaced by bursts of indiscriminate weapon fire in dark quarters. Now, I don’t know if this was meant for the hardened “terrorist” or civilians, than again, are the Israelis known for making the distinction? See the Goldstone Report.
It is also important to remember that the myth at the core of the Zionist narrative (propaganda) is that tiny little Israel — David — was overrun by hordes of murderous Arabs from all directions — Goliath.
But, that is a myth.
The truth, according to both Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe, is that Zionist militias which later comprised the Israeli army, outnumbered the so-called “Arab armies” by a ratio of roughly 8 to 1.
In addition, when the monolithic and threatening phrase “Arab armies” is used, it invokes images that support the myth. In reality, the “Arab armies” were several battalions from Egypt, and the Iraqi-Jordanian army, with a smaller number from Syria in the north.
And while Zionist forces had advanced weaponry courtesy of Britain and a few other friendly European countries, Palestinian villages had negligible weaponry. Some villages had volunteer fighters who were equipped with older weaponry dating back to the Ottoman era, and usually numbered in the dozen or so men.
Contrast the zionist obsession with expelling Palestines and defeating all their ‘enemies” with these examples:
When Israel had their huge fires, in their entire country they didn’t have the necessary equipment to put their fires out and had to call on other countries to do it.
And this:
Israeli airlines are almost totally grounded due to contaminated fuel and Israel doesn’t even have a lab capable of testing the fuel to find out what the contaminant is and had ask the US to do it for them , but the US refused so now they have approached 3 other countries to do it for them.
link to haaretz.com
And then contrast these two things to Israel now saying they are going to spend 1 billion on their “Iron Dome”.
The pro Israelis are always bragging about Israel’s accomplishments. One article over the AIPC site says Israel invented the ‘cell phone’ when everyone knows the cell phone was invented by Martin Cooper at Motorola a day ahead of Bell Labs USA….and yet they don’t even have a lab to test their jet fuel?
Israel reminds me of a Hollywood set where there is nothing behind the set, it’s an illlusion.
When you peek behind the door there no real there there in terms of a country actually capable of taking care of itself domestically, everything is about making war and explioting the holocuast.
This a house of straw and one good wind like losing the US could blow it all away.
And the politicians in DC have caught the same disease and are fast making the US just like that…one slip between the money they spend and what they able to borrow abroad and it’s curtains for the US…..and then for Israel.
This is hysterical…….these ‘marriages of convience’ between politicos, chistian zios and the real zionistas .. when they all have actual different agendas always leads to really nasty divorces sooner or later.
“After all he’s done for Israel, Mike Huckabee does not appreciate being criticized for comparing American debt to the Holocaust. Thus on Tuesday, when the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman chastised him for doing just that, he responded with anger and a hint of menace, saying, “Israel and Jewish people need to make friends, not insult the ones they have.”
link to thedailybeast.com
Thanks for this url, American. The good pastor seems quite full of himself, doesn’t he?
The Jewish Nakba
link to blogs.jpost.com
The Israeli government just made commemorating the Nakba illegal, I thought.
I’m waiting for the day the Israeli government makes orwellian language and fact twisting and plain old fabrication of history illegal, but I guess that would mean the jpost might have large blank spots and a lot of out-of-work hasbara workers.
talk about revisionist history. that wasn’t a catasstrophe that was a god send that allowed them to be agressive and expansionistic.
Ah yes, the “jewish nakba” that didn’t even exist until the New Historians smashed the official Israel narative of 1947/8/9 to pieces and notions of the Palestinian Nakba began to enter mainstream consciousness. Until then the mass migration of jewish arabs was celebrated as a great achievement by Israel. Is there anything Israelis won’t steal from Palestinians – now they want Al Nakba also?!
There are no UN GA or SC resolutions about jewish refugees from arabs lands. Jerusalem Post conveniently forgets to mention that Mossad terrorised the largest jewish community in the Middle East in Iraq in the early 1950s after hardly anyone signed up to make aliyah to Israel, with bombs in synagogues.
Meanwhile on morning radio today I heard part an interview about the Government of Israel’s latest project to keep the holocaust at the top of the pops, an online database of items lost or stolen from jews during WW2, which survivors and descendents of survivors can add to. The interviewee sounded quite genuine and the database sounds like a reasonable project. I posted a link to a news article about this a few days ago. I kept waiting for the interviewer to mention the Nakba, that +90% of Israel is stolen land, the mass looting and theft of Palestinian property that occurred in 1947/8/9, the demolition of 500 Palestinians villages – and gee isn’t it ironic that the GOI continues pursuing restitution from the 1940s when they have their very own outstanding restitutions to pay from just a few years later. It didn’t happen, but it will in time.
Anyway – long live Israel, indeed. Germany finished paying off their World War One restitutions in 2010. It will take a mighty long time for Israel to pay Palestinians restitutions for stealing an entire country.
Ah yes, the “jewish nakba” that didn’t even exist until the New Historians smashed the official Israel narative of 1947/8/9 to pieces and notions of the Palestinian Nakba began to enter mainstream consciousness. ”
Yeah, funny how that works, right? Israel hasn’t dwelled on it or asked the UN to set up special committees for it, but it did happen, I promise.
You can demonstrate that you care about human rights, and not just some group’s parochial political struggle, by recognizing that others besides the Palestinians suffered in last 60 years.
Of course not, hophmi. Whenever Israel wants something, they bomb a UN facility and then phone a few US Congresspeople.
Israel trots out the holocaust at the drop of a hat and will stick the knife into other countries in the Middle East at any opportunity. This “jewish nakba” simply did not exist before the 90s. There’s a good reason why.
I believe that there probably were isolated cases of what could be called ethnic cleansing of arab jews in ME countries – which needs to be recognised & resolved by those countries (as does the Mossad’s actions in Iraq, for example) – but by and large the mass migration that occurred from the late 40s to 60s was *voluntary*.
If i remember correct, it was Avi Shlaim who said that there is not a single academic style study for reasons etc. to jewish expulsion from arab states. On another site i took this same issue up, and those israel firsters give some links. In allmost all, i could find little text ” this is not an academic study”. Didnt saw them since.
@clencher You should take up the issue of translating likhbosh with JPost, since they translated it as “to conquer.” Unless I’m mistaken, the root of likhbosh is kibush, or conquest. And while I clearly stated that the soldiers may not have been training to literally conquer a village and force its inhabitants out, the language they use to describe their methods reflected the legacy of settler-colonialism that forms Israel’s past and guides it into the future.
On your point about the demise of the concept of Avodah Ivrit, Ehud Barak said in 1999 that the goal of Israel’s separation policy should be eliminating the presence of Palestinian labor from inside Israel. The fact that the state merely displaced Palestinian workers with migrant labor hardly represents an exorcism of the ghosts of Zionism past, especially considering the level of violence and invective directed against the migrants.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the root of Likhbosh is a three letter word made up of K (the letter Kahf), B (the letter Bet) and Sh (the letter Shin) — כבש pronounced: Kavash, meaning, to take over, to annex, to subdue, to conquer. Hence the expression Hu Kavash Et Libah: He conquered/captured her heart. Incidentally, the same root also means “to preserve”, as when cucumbers are preserved in brine, thus resulting in pickles.
Regarding the hebrew word Likhbosh:
Makes me think of the Arabic word: Yikbos (to pressure), from the root word Kabss, which ALSO means to ‘Grab’.
And yeah funny enough ‘Kabeess’ is Pickles and ‘kabbass’ is Pickler!!
Since we’re getting into etymology, I’m curious if the Arabic cognate is related to the differently-spelled Hebrew root QBS קבס .
I wouldn’t be surprised if the meaning of KBS as brining, that Avi referenced, doesn’t come directly from the Arabic.
The original meaning of KBS כבש in Jewish understanding is Genesis 1:28. In God’s first conversation with humankind God authorizes humanity to control/take ownership of Creation.
In relation to Max’s usage, the Talmud uses this root to talk about Jewish ownership of Palestine. The scope of the discussion (which appears in several different contexts in the Talmud) is whether Joshua’s initial conquest is binding for all time, making it the Holy Land, irrespective of Jewish sovereignty, or, does Palestine need to be re-populated by Jews in order to be holy. This ‘holiness’ has significance for the performance of certain rituals, including caring for the poor. The underlying concept is that it is Israelite ownership that confers holiness on the Land. The act of entering the Land and taking ownership is called Kibbush (KBS).
On pronunciation, Max you initially transliterated the word as likhboosh. I put that down to the tendency of Israeli speakers of Hebrew tends to turn the “aw” vowel into more of an “oo” sound. American Jews prefer the “oh” vowel, as in the pronunciation of “Shalom”.
Elliot, I think you mean the other way around. American Jews emphasize the first syllable instead of the second, as Hebrew speakers do. That is why one might get “Shooow-mer Shabat” in the US, instead of the Hebrew “Sho-merrrr shabat”.
This post may finally motivate me to actually buy the Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic instead of just skimming through it at the bookstore!
Avi –
I agree. America is a mil’el (accent on penultimate syllable) kinda place. Every two syllable name that I can think of is accented on the first syllable. In Hebrew, as you well know, it’s just the opposite.
But that’s not what I was going after. I hear Israeli Hebrew as clipping the vowels as opposed to the rounded American vowels. I can see how the standard infinitive form “likhbosh” would come over to an American as “likhboosh.”
otoh, we may be just indulging in a gratuitous dissection of Max’s double ‘oo’. But, a guy’s gotta have some fun too…
From the Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, Third Edition page 811 of the pocket sized paperback:
Kaf-Ba-Sin: to exert pressure, press, squeeze; to attack, raid, take by surprise, to intercalate, to preserve (in vinegar or the like), pickle; to marinate; to marinate; to conserve IIto press or squeeze hard; to massage…….
LOL that’s cute, olive (I’m assuming you’re now using your brand new Wehr dictionary).
But honestly, I think your dictionary got the word wrong though. It’s Kabbasseen (pronounced: Kab-ba-seen) and not as your dictionary suggests: Kaf-Ba-Sin. In fact, I don’t even think there’s such a word in Arabic as ‘Kafbasin’. Sorry. Maybe you should return the dictionary and ask for your money back. Try the Concise Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary (available I believe on Amazon.com). It’s a pretty good one to own.
My dear Taxi, Kaf-Ba-Sin (I “romanized”this due to a lack of an Arabic keyboard on my part) is the triliteral root. The Hans Wehr dictionary (which is a highly respected dictionary) merely examined the various ways that the this triliteral root can be interpreted ( I omited the grammitical points and examples used in the dictionary because I’m too lazy to type the Arabic out even if I had a keyboard)…
But you get the idea……..
Max, I appreciate your journalism and video work. If you say the source of this pretty not important snafu is sloppy and misleading work from jpost, well, it won’t be the first time.
I’m not arguing over whether or not Zionism has harmed Palestinians. Just trying to keep the door open to a hoped for moment of Zionist reformation. I sort of miss the early fascination with farming, labor and socialism. Near as I can tell, that stuff felt essential to many of the pioneers, not secondary to matters concerning Arabs.
When things do change, it won’t be because Israelis give up Zionism, it will be because they allowed it to be redefined. In pursuit of this agenda, I choose to emphasize Zionist mutability over essentialism.
I’m not arguing over whether or not Zionism has harmed Palestinians. Just trying to keep the door open to a hoped for moment of Zionist reformation. I sort of miss the early fascination with farming, labor and socialism. Near as I can tell, that stuff felt essential to many of the pioneers, not secondary to matters concerning Arabs
Farming, labor and socialism were important in reality for only a few years at the very beginning. None of those have been central to real life in I/P’s Jewish community for at least 80 years. Unless you are a lot older than you sound, you have no memory of that time.
What you are missing is the songs and celebration of all that. The Zionist rhetoric about these components which went on for a lot longer.
As for ignoring the indigenous Palestinians, from the very beginning, you are absolutely right. Here’s what an early Zionist had to say about that.
In 1929, Zionist executive Hans Kohn wrote:
“We pretend to be innocent victims….we have been in Palestine for twelve years [i.e. since the establishment of the British Mandate and Jewish National Home in Palestine] without having even once made a serious attempt at seeking through negotiations the consent of the indigenous people…having come to this country [as immigrants], we were duty bound to come up with constitutional proposals which, without doing serious harm to Arab rights and liberty, would have allowed for our free cultural and social development. But for twelve years we pretended that the Arabs did not exist and were glad we were not reminded of their existence.”
(Martin Buber: A Land of Two Peoples, ed. Paul Mendes-Flohr, pp. 98-99)
In 1929, Hans Kohn declared that Zionism is not Judaism and left Palestine for America.
oops, I messed up my end bold command. The above should end:
But for twelve years we pretended that the Arabs did not exist and were glad we were not reminded of their existence.”
(Martin Buber: A Land of Two Peoples, ed. Paul Mendes-Flohr, pp. 98-99)
In 1929, Hans Kohn declared that Zionism is not Judaism and left Palestine for America.
Elliot, when I was a member of Hashomer Hatzair for a few years, the folks there were very interested in farming, labor and socialism. This was much more recent. People (me) actually spent their free time on weekends doing farm work – out of idealism.
Clenchner –
Nowadays, leftist idealists spend their weekends standing in solidarity with Palestinians (including farmers) on the West Bank. I’m tempted to say that if you’d heeded Hans Kohn back when you were doing your weekend farming, and gotten on with dealing with the Palestinians instead, you could be doing gardening right now instead of spending your time trying to figure the mess out, here on Mondoweiss.
Today Hashomer Hatza’ir (Young Guard), is essentially a nice, youth movement. At a recent rally, the Hashomer Hatza’ir folks showed up chanting: “Zionist, Not Racist.” Yet, according to the parents of one Hashomer Hatza’ir child, their members still want to preserve the State’s preference of Jew over non-Jew and justify that by their fear of “becoming like the rest of the Middle East.”
Zionists, then and now, want to have their cake and eat it too.
On whose land, clenchner?
“Just trying to keep the door open to a hoped for moment of Zionist reformation.”
Gee, maybe we shouldn’t arrest serial murderers, or rapists, or career criminals. After all, there’s always that “moment” of “reformation” to be hoped for.
Now, now, clenchner, don’t go accusing me of anti-Semitism. I, too, feel very sure there will be a big moment of “Zionist reformation”! And I can even predict the very day it will come: the day after all the Palestinians and Gazans are dead or dispersed.
Good article. And very revealing: nothing has changed since 1948, Israel and the IDF still considers in in their DNA, their raison d’etre, to occupy Palestinian villages, expelling and killing the inhabitants. Nobody in their right minds (which excludes Zionists) would pretend this has anything to do with ‘defence’. Over 60 years, and they are still in mindset that taking over, and ‘conquering’ foreign land and villages, is their birthright and their holy vocation. Why don’t they go practice being civil human beings instead?
You’re so full of it, Max. It’s a training exercise for urban warfare, not a re-enactment of 1948. Get over it.
And stop using Hamas’s news website as a source.
“Conquest is inscribed in the logic of Zionism.”
Conquest is inscribed in the logic of Max Blumenthal, who seeks to lie and distort to conquer the minds of the ignorant.
“And stop using Hamas’s news website as a source. ”
Eyeroll. The Youtube video and link to the story both come from The Jerusalem Post. Just look at the Jpost logo at the bottom corner of the youtube clip.
But the one link to the single line in the story that referances the Maan news agency is also a lie. Maan news is not a “Hamas news website” as you claim. It actually was set up in 2002 by the Palestinian Authority ruled by Fatah (until a few days ago) and is funded by Denmark. Maan news even has offices in Tel Aviv as well as Gaza City, Jerusalem and Hebron.
So back up your facts before you call a link “a Hamas news website” without any shred of proof or knowledge of its involvement as a Palestinian Authority project. Or maybe you just consider any Palestinian news outfit to be Hamas related. As stupid as saying all Israeli media is “settler media”.
Next-to-last source cited by Max was from Palestine-info.co.uk.
don’t cite Palestinian sources
no one will believe you
I won’t believe you
trust Israeli sources
Remi Kanazi
The Does and Don’ts of Palestine
Just as soon as you stop using the Israeli Foreign Ministry and related AIPAC affiliates as a news source.
Israel is like the Wizard of Oz. Take away all the lies, deception and myths and what have you got left? The only “democracy” in the middle east turns out to be anything but a democracy, it’s claim to want “peace” is anything but wanting peace, it’s claim to be the “victim” is anything but being the victim, it’s claim to have the most “moral” army in the world turns out to be the one of least moral armies in the world. Slowly the world is waking up and seeing the real Israel behind this facade.
Israel is like the Wizard of Oy.
Preparation for more ethnic cleansing goes on and on
I can think of something else that goes on and on.
What preparation are you talking about, exactly? How many Palestinians have been expelled from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the last 25 years?
Seriously, why are you so rude? Is that how your parents taught you to behave?
Anyway, here seems to be a comprehensive account of the Israeli practice of deportation and here you will find data about home demolitions.
There are more ways Israel uses to get rid of Palestinians than direct expulsion. You can find out a lot of this also on the sites Chaos gave. But do you notice how hophmi considers all parts of the occupied territories the same territory when Israel expels Palestinians from one part of the occupied territories to another in order to make room for the Jewish-only settlements, thereby making such expulsions not ethnic cleansing, however, for the purpose of Israel keeping the parts of the occupied territories it’s annexed, the areas Israel is expelling Palestinians from can be considered part of Israel?
The ethnic cleansing is ongoing.
I think hophmi and his pals consider Mondoweiss occupied territory.