العربية أم العبرية . . . ما هو الفرق؟
For those of us who don’t speak any Arabic, the title for this post actually means: “Arabic or Hebrew . . . what’s the difference?” The title came to me while I was quickly reading an article and I accidentally confused the words “Hebrew” and “Arabic.” They look so similar, but are so inherently different (the difference is one letter) and I found myself saying: “Why are they going to change the names of Arab cities to Arab names?” That’s because it’s not Arabic they’re going them change it to; it’s Hebrew.
Apparently, the new Israeli Transportation Minister, Mr. Yisrael Katz is out to leave his imprint on the roads all over “Eretz Israel” by changing the English and Arabic places names on road signs to “better reflect their Hebrew pronunciation.”
The reason? Road signs written in three different languages reduce “drivers’ ability to navigate to their destinations. We therefore decided to change all of the signs to reflect their Hebrew pronunciation, as is customary in other countries in the world.”
First of all, I wonder which countries they’re talking about their statement and secondly, it’s funny, because last time I checked, people who are literate, be it in Hebrew, Arabic or English, can’t help but reach their final destinations with the signs currently in place. Most Israelis speak both Hebrew and English and most Arabs within Israel speak Arabic in addition to Hebrew. Most tourists to Israel also speak English, can get by in English, or speak some Hebrew or Arabic. Their reasons for the signs are just a weak attempt to cover up the truth.
No, the real reason for changing the already existing “Urushalim” (اورشليم) to “Yurushaleem” (يورشاليم) and the names of Tiberias, Nazareth, Akka and Yafa to Tverya, Nazareet, Akko, and Yafo respectively is to erase the last traces of anything Palestinian or Arab from the face of the land. Mr. Katz, and no doubt Mr. Netanyahu, are out to Hebraize the cities and to Jewify the land in their attempts to eliminate the existence of any history belonging to Arab cities and villages. They want to discontinue the use of any Arab identity attached to these cities through the use of names that “reflect a Hebrew-only transliteration in English and Arabic.” Sounds like Israel is adding a bit of linguistic cleansing to the ethnic one already systematically in place in the West Bank. Let’s not forget that Arabic is an official language of the State of Israel. I bet the next move they’ll want to pull will be to remove Arabic from the “Official Languages” list.
A picture on the road back to Jerusalem from the Dead Sea
Katz went on to add that “almost all Israeli communities’ names have previous names.” Why ask for a clearer statement attesting to the fact that Palestinians were actually living in those communities before the arrival of European Jewry in the early half of the twentieth century. “Some Palestinian maps still refer to the Israeli cities by their [Arabic-language] pre-1948 names.”
All in all though, this move on the part of the new Israeli government doesn’t come as a surprise. Israel has been erasing Palestine for the past 60+ years. Why should they stop now, especially when Netanyahu’s extremist government which insists that Israel is a “Jewish state,” has no real intentions of establishing a Palestinian state as Bibi’s own father revealed on the Channel 2 interview last week.
With so much gone already, what’s left to erase?
[Tarboush Tip: Nidal and Basel]
