Victors and Vanquished Forging a Hebrew Landscape from the Palestinian Exodus

Questions

• How did the creation of Israel as a Jewish state reshape the landscape? [How did Independence become part of the landscape?][How did the Naqba become part of the landscape?]

• How did the remaking of landscape become an integral part of the conflict?

John Smith “Map of Virginia” (1608)

John SmithMap of N. England 1616

Thomas Holme / Map of Pennsilvania (1687)

John Melish / Map of the United States (1813)

Menachem Ussishkin / Transfer?“We must continually raise the demand that our land be returned to our possession.... If there are other inhabitants there, they must be transferred to some other place…

We cannot start the Jewish state with...half the population being Arab…Such a state cannot survive even half an hour... It [transfer] is most moral... I am ready to come and defend ... it before the Almighty.

Menachem Ussishkin

1930 / 1938

Menachem Ussishkin / JNF Naming Committee“The historical Hebrew names of places in Eretz Israel are the most reliable testimony that these places have been our patrimony from time immemorial… If the JNF Naming Committee is convinced that a new Jewish settlement is located near a place… where there was a Jewish settlement during one of the periods when the nation of Israel dwelt in Eretz Israel, the committee shall assign to the new or restored settlement the historical Hebrew name.”

Menachem Ussishkin

(1931)

Jewish National Fund

Blue Box (1934)

1947-48

Palestinian Villages Depopulated (1947-48)

Source: Salman Abu Sitta, “The Towns and Villages Depopulated by the Zionist Invasion of 1948.”

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story1261.html

Dilemma of VictoryWhat to do with the Abandoned Palestinian Town and Property?

How to reconcile Jewish sovereignty over the territory of Israel with non-Jewish landownership?

Solving the Dilemma:Law and The Creation of an Israeli Landscape

Phase 1: Creation of Absentee Property (1948-50)

Classified Palestinian property owners in a new legal way as Absentees.Created new status for property of Absentees as Absentee Property.Create a Custodian to inventory Absentee Property.Empowered CAP to sell Absentee Property to state or JNF.

Solving the Dilemma:Law and The Creation of an Israeli Landscape

Phase 2: Development Authority / Transfer of Property Law (1951)

Make permanent the status of Absentee property by transferring it to the Development Authority.

Empower Development Authority to reallocate Absentee Property.

Solving the Dilemma:Law and The Creation of an Israeli Landscape

Phase 3: Land Acquisition Law (1953)

Acquire land of Palestinians still inside Israel classified as “present absentees.”

Used the rationale of “security” for such seizures and use Finance Ministry to reallocate such land.

Solving the Dilemma:Law and The Creation of an Israeli Landscape

Phase 4: Israel Lands Law (1960)

Establish Israel Land Authority (ILA) for creating system of state land for Jewish settlement and development.

Law established a closed institutional reservoir for the allocation of land only to the state, the JNF or local Jewish development authorities.

Outcomes of Creating ‘Israel Lands’

1) Transformed Dispossession into Law2) Created a new spatial and demographic map3) Severed connections between Palestinians and their land4) Posed question of right of return

Lifta

Yuvalim

Jewish National Fund – Planting Settlements, Planting Trees

Olive-Anchored Village Landscape (Husan)

Conifer-Anchored Jewish Landscape (Yuvalim)

Maps, Law, and Creating a Hebrew

Landscape