Avigayil billboard, February 2012
This is a billboard in the Hebron Hills for a Jewish settlement in the occupied territory: Avigayil. I took the picture in February. Translation from Ofer:
We are expanding Avigayil – a farming community village
For details [call] Miri: [number]
The logo at the top left is for Amana, a settler movement associated with Gush Emunim:
The critical nature of Amana’s work lies in insuring a strong, vibrant presence in the only areas which can provide quality living for the inevitable overflow from the crowded Tel Aviv, coastal region. This presence is a guiding force in protecting the conditions necessary for a Jewish State.
Who is going to stop them, recognition as a state at the UNGA is a prerequisite before the ICC can investigate these crimes, unfortunately according to Abu Rudanieh the PA leadership had still not decided to resume its effort to achieve UN recognition of a Palestinian state. He said the Palestinians would decide on the matter after consulting Arab countries. [ Jerusalem Post 17-06-2012] He also said the PA would wait and see if the US would present new ideas to revive the peace process during Erekets visit to Washington this week. I’m sure Washington will have plenty of ideas to revive the annexation process, so desperate are the PA to get back round that table. To be fair they must be under a lot of pressure to to agree to talks without the Israelis agreeing to stop settlement building, an obligation under the road map, that’s why Israel/US keep on insisting talks must proceed without preconditions. If it is so difficult for the PA to go to the UNGA for that state recognition how much more difficult will another request to the ICC be, especially after the IDF Military Advocate General Mandelblit has said the PA’s actions with regard to the ICC as “war to take us to the ICC” and hoped the US would help the PA understand the gravity of its actions. [wikileaks.org cable] I’m sure they have, and in no uncertain language. I hope the PA have not forgotten the strategy put forward before its claim for statehood at the UNSC, Zomlot, Senior official in Fatah’s Dept of Foreign Relations said ” How has Israel sustained the status quo for nearly 20 years? The bilateral process has led nowhere, and one of the tools to sustain the status quo was negotiations themselves. We stopped that, and we stopped that strategically. Negotiations under the previous terms were just prolonging negotiations. The terms of reference were created and accepted by Israel before we even started. WE ARE NOT GOING BACK TO THE OLD DAYS OF NONSENSE”. We shall see.
“We are expanding….”
An uninhibited advertisement for ethnic cleansing.
The relative ordinary-ness of this sign is what is so shocking.
US Taxpayer dollars at work.
Phil – any particular reason for choosing the word ‘Arcadia’? The language on the billboard itself doesn’t speak to anything idyllic, but rather a last resort, as ‘the only areas which can provide quality living.’
I ask this in particular because my day job requires that I work in the museum store at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and in particular, in the exhibition store of a new exhibit entitled “Visions of Arcadia: Cezanne, Matisse, Gauguin”. (review: http://34st.com/2012/06/review-visions-of-arcadia/
Thus, while selling t-shirts, prints, and mugs, I go on regular diatribes of the devastation of French colonialism, and the sexism and racism which were normalized by these artists in what became Modern Art.
As such, I’d be interested in the connection between an “Arcadia” and an ethnically cleansed land.