Salman Masalha
'Neutralizing' East Jerusalem:
A day before the start of Operation Pillar of Defense, Nir Hasson revealed the Nature and Parks Authority's plan to establish a national park on the eastern slopes of Mount Scopus. According to Peace Now, the park "is meant to create a corridor of Israeli presence from East Jerusalem towards E-1."
Salman Masalha || 'They see not, nor know'
All of a sudden, everyone is protesting vehemently - those who are called left-wing here, and all the other sorts of hypocrites from the rest of the world - about the plans to build in the area known in the Zionist secret code as E-1. I must admit that I haven't fully understood those who are protesting. Because in which way is this site more outrageous than the other conquests we have witnessed in the past decades, so that it has aroused their ire?
Why is this site worse than Ma'aleh Adumim or Har Homa, what is the difference between it and Pisgat Ze'ev or any other swath or dunam that was stolen? All of them were partners to creating these facts, these nationalist ticking bombs in the area. Starting with the Zionist establishment, which has always eagerly eyed Palestinian real estate without Palestinians in the occupied territories, and including a number of little Palestinians who are known as leaders and who wanted to fill their pockets with money and the keys to power and who supplied all these settlements with the necessary concrete. Don't say that you didn't know and didn't understand the meaning of the plan that was meant for this area. After all, the fish that robbed them stinks from the head.
In all the hullabaloo around Operation Pillar of Defense, an investigative report on the subject has been forgotten, as if it never existed. A day before the start of the operation, Nir Hasson revealed (Haaretz, November 13 ) the Nature and Parks Authority's plan to establish a national park on the eastern slopes of Mount Scopus. According to Peace Now, the park "is meant to create a corridor of Israeli presence from East Jerusalem towards E-1." The name given the plan was "They see not, nor know, 2012." Its aim, as the planning document stated, was "preventing the area's designation as a national park that maintains the values of nature and landscape from being neutralized."
The term "neutralize" is very popular with people who have served in the security and expulsion forces. The question to be asked is, What did the poet who spoke of "neutralization" mean in this plan? The document supplies the following answer: "Destroying buildings belonging to Arabs and clearing the rubble in the 'Mount Scopus Slopes' national park that is expected to be established in east Jerusalem."
The plan was delayed a year ago by a court order for a prosaic reason - because of a petition submitted over the question of whether to translate into Arabic the "They see not, nor know" document. This document must be translated not only into Arabic but also, and more importantly, into contemporary Hebrew that is comprehensible to the general public. Because the planners' feverish brains have revealed a little but hidden a lot. It is clear that the choice of the name for the plan is not coincidental. The driving force behind it is a settler and former senior official in the Elad (To the City of David ) association who now serves as the director of the Jerusalem district in the Nature and Parks Authority. He must certainly know a thing or two about the name's significance.
It is not only the Palestinians who don't know and don't understand; the average Israeli Jew, too, doesn't know what the poet meant when he spoke about neutralizing. That is because the plan's name is also aimed against the judges in Israel who, according to the concepts of the settler director, are too punctilious about the rules of law. In order to understand what is hidden behind the name, one has to go to the source in the book of Psalms, to Psalm 82 verses 2-5:
"How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken."
The wicked, in the eyes of the person who wrote the document, are of course the Palestinians. Even though they are assisted by the judges only on rare occasions, this is not to the liking of the settlers. In the eyes of these robbers, the judges of the High Court of Justice should deviate from the laws of the Torah and stop handing down true justice in circumstances like these. The judges must treat the settlers according to the circumstances of the time and place. The judges, after all, are conceived of by the settlers and their ilk as destroyers of the world, as it is said: "Jerusalem was destroyed only because they based their judgments [strictly] on the law of the Torah."
It is just as we said. The document not only has to be translated into Arabic but must also be translated for those who read Hebrew so that they may know and understand. Because the fish that is busy neutralizing stinks from the head.
*
Published: Opinion-Haaretz, 14 Dec. 2012
***
For Hebrew, press here
A day before the start of Operation Pillar of Defense, Nir Hasson revealed the Nature and Parks Authority's plan to establish a national park on the eastern slopes of Mount Scopus. According to Peace Now, the park "is meant to create a corridor of Israeli presence from East Jerusalem towards E-1."
Salman Masalha || 'They see not, nor know'
All of a sudden, everyone is protesting vehemently - those who are called left-wing here, and all the other sorts of hypocrites from the rest of the world - about the plans to build in the area known in the Zionist secret code as E-1. I must admit that I haven't fully understood those who are protesting. Because in which way is this site more outrageous than the other conquests we have witnessed in the past decades, so that it has aroused their ire?
Why is this site worse than Ma'aleh Adumim or Har Homa, what is the difference between it and Pisgat Ze'ev or any other swath or dunam that was stolen? All of them were partners to creating these facts, these nationalist ticking bombs in the area. Starting with the Zionist establishment, which has always eagerly eyed Palestinian real estate without Palestinians in the occupied territories, and including a number of little Palestinians who are known as leaders and who wanted to fill their pockets with money and the keys to power and who supplied all these settlements with the necessary concrete. Don't say that you didn't know and didn't understand the meaning of the plan that was meant for this area. After all, the fish that robbed them stinks from the head.
In all the hullabaloo around Operation Pillar of Defense, an investigative report on the subject has been forgotten, as if it never existed. A day before the start of the operation, Nir Hasson revealed (Haaretz, November 13 ) the Nature and Parks Authority's plan to establish a national park on the eastern slopes of Mount Scopus. According to Peace Now, the park "is meant to create a corridor of Israeli presence from East Jerusalem towards E-1." The name given the plan was "They see not, nor know, 2012." Its aim, as the planning document stated, was "preventing the area's designation as a national park that maintains the values of nature and landscape from being neutralized."
The term "neutralize" is very popular with people who have served in the security and expulsion forces. The question to be asked is, What did the poet who spoke of "neutralization" mean in this plan? The document supplies the following answer: "Destroying buildings belonging to Arabs and clearing the rubble in the 'Mount Scopus Slopes' national park that is expected to be established in east Jerusalem."
The plan was delayed a year ago by a court order for a prosaic reason - because of a petition submitted over the question of whether to translate into Arabic the "They see not, nor know" document. This document must be translated not only into Arabic but also, and more importantly, into contemporary Hebrew that is comprehensible to the general public. Because the planners' feverish brains have revealed a little but hidden a lot. It is clear that the choice of the name for the plan is not coincidental. The driving force behind it is a settler and former senior official in the Elad (To the City of David ) association who now serves as the director of the Jerusalem district in the Nature and Parks Authority. He must certainly know a thing or two about the name's significance.
It is not only the Palestinians who don't know and don't understand; the average Israeli Jew, too, doesn't know what the poet meant when he spoke about neutralizing. That is because the plan's name is also aimed against the judges in Israel who, according to the concepts of the settler director, are too punctilious about the rules of law. In order to understand what is hidden behind the name, one has to go to the source in the book of Psalms, to Psalm 82 verses 2-5:
"How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken."
The wicked, in the eyes of the person who wrote the document, are of course the Palestinians. Even though they are assisted by the judges only on rare occasions, this is not to the liking of the settlers. In the eyes of these robbers, the judges of the High Court of Justice should deviate from the laws of the Torah and stop handing down true justice in circumstances like these. The judges must treat the settlers according to the circumstances of the time and place. The judges, after all, are conceived of by the settlers and their ilk as destroyers of the world, as it is said: "Jerusalem was destroyed only because they based their judgments [strictly] on the law of the Torah."
It is just as we said. The document not only has to be translated into Arabic but must also be translated for those who read Hebrew so that they may know and understand. Because the fish that is busy neutralizing stinks from the head.
*
Published: Opinion-Haaretz, 14 Dec. 2012
***
For Hebrew, press here
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