Zionist settlement ideology deliberately demolished native landscapes before rebuilding.
Evidence
As Theodor Herzl, founding father of Zionism, observed in his allegorical manifesto/novel, ‘If I wish to substitute a new building for an old one, I must demolish before I construct.’ In a kind of realization that took place half a century later, one-time deputy-mayor of West Jerusalem Meron Benvenisti recalled, ‘As a member of a pioneering youth movement, I myself “made the desert bloom” by uprooting the ancient olive trees of al-Bassa to clear the ground for a banana grove, as required by the “planned farming” principles of my kibbutz, Rosh Haniqra.’ Renaming is central to the cadastral effacement/replacement of the Palestinian Arab presence that Benvenisti poignantly recounts. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 929 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Territorial clearance in Israel’s case has been prompted historically in terms of “redemption of land.” This heart-felt historico-moral claim to land redemption, to retrieving territory always already biblically “ours,” distinguishes racial palestinianization from classic modes of settler colonialism. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 654 (
#complicates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Nineteenth-century Zionists believed landscape itself could generate Jewish art; Zionist land practices deliberately effaced Palestinian presence through demolition and renaming — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 929; Zionism’s settlement of Palestine structurally required demographic and cultural replacement of natives. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 466 (+9 more)
Broader Connections
- Zionist land practices deliberately effaced Palestinian presence through demolition and renaming
#corroborates(0.93) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 929 - Biblical land-redemption ideology distinguishes Israeli settler colonialism from classic settler modes.
#complicates(0.83) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 654 - Settlers imposed idyllic biblical landscapes onto harsh colonial territory
#complicates(0.82)