“The principle that has guided me is to strengthen Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria,’’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said later Wednesday, using the biblical names for the West Bank.
Well, let's go linguistic on this.
First off, we know the term "West Bank" is not Biblical. Nor medieval. It stems from 1950 when King Abdallah I, having illegally occupied the area of Judea and Samaria, then annexed it and attached to his kingdom by the river. Seeking a good sell, he called that act the "unification of the two banks".
Secondly, as I pointed out previously, once in 2008 already, and another time this past January, the real most recent names of the region are inded Judea and Samaria (and Gaza, funny how she doesn't write "Gaza" is a Biblical name when writing about that area, except, I guess, when mentioning Jews. Arabs get a free pass to use "Gaza") *.
And third, following from that last bit, since we know that "Palestine" in a geo-political sense, stems from the Roman usage in the post-Bar Kochba Revolt period after 135 CE, why doesn't she write: "Palestine, the Latin term for Judea" or something similar. After all, if the paper is to be 'correct', to be reflective of history, why not?
Or are Jews to be singled out for special linguistic treatment?
Perhaps CAMERA or another media-monitoring group would take this on?
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* P.S.
a) in the 1947 UN Partition Plan boundaries - The boundary of the hill country of Samaria and Judea starts on the Jordan River at the Wadi Malih south-east of Beisan and runs......From here it follows the northern and eastern boundaries of the village of Ar'ara, rejoining the Haifa-Samaria district boundary at Wadi'Ara...
b) Encyclopedia Britannica - Judaea, also spelled Judea, or Judah, Hebrew Yehudaḥ, the southernmost of the three traditional divisions of ancient Palestine; the other two were Galilee in the north and Samaria in the centre. No clearly marked boundary divided Judaea from Samaria, but the town of Beersheba was traditionally the southernmost limit...The name Judaea is still used to describe approximately the same area in modern Israel.
c) more - Some examples of reference works using the names Judea and Samaria: •A map published by the US State Department designating the Middle East’s “Military Situation” on July 18, 1948 calls the “Arab held” area north of Jerusalem “Samaria”; •In A Survey of Palestine prepared by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in December 1945 and January 1946 the authors used the titles “Judea” and “Samaria” as a matter of course when referring to what later became the “West Bank” •Every edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, up to the latest (1994) writes extensively concerning the areas politically called the West Bank, and calls them by their historically accurate names: Samaria and Judea. The fact that the “West Bank” is not mentioned once in the 1954 edition
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In the early 80's the NYT Magazine had a Thomas Friedman article on extremism in the Middle East. The article IIRC started off with two examples.
The first was an Amal militiaman going into the Commodore hotel and smashing all the liquor bottles.
The second was that Israeli politicians were using the biblical names of Judea and Samaria.
Martin Peretz at TNR noted this.
David
Since 1950 the Arabs have built some 261 new settlements in Judea and Samaria — more than twice as many as the Jews, but you never hear of them.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/07/magazine/the-power-of-the-fanatics.html
...BUT YOU DON'T HAVE to smash up a bar or wipe out a city to get your way. Some of the most successful extremists have probably never wielded a gun. But they do know how to wield words, which brings me to my second point.
Extremists, and all those in the Middle East who reject compromise solutions, are gaining strength today because they understand much better than the moderates the importance of language and agendas. They recognize much more clearly than their opponents that determining how people describe their world, how they see their alternatives, is where the real power lies.
For instance, after the Six- Day War of 1967, elements from the extreme nationalist Israeli movement Gush Emunim were able to generate enough pressure on a succession of hesitant and divided Israeli Cabinets to get the biblical names of Judea and Samaria imposed officially on the territory known in modern times as the West Bank. The new names, repeated in all Israeli radio and television broadcasts and in all Government documents, naturally carried over into the daily language of politics - to such an extent that, during the recent election campaign, even the Labor Party leader, Shimon Peres, referred to the territory as Judea and Samaria.
It is in the middle of the article, after describing lots of horrendous acts of terror
Yisrael,
Did you elect Ehud Barak your governor? If you didn't, what gives him the right to manage civil affairs in Judea and Samaria? Its a small point but an elected official should be dealing with matters of concern to the Jewish population of Judea and Samaria and as I recall, they never elected Barak to oversee their lives.
Norman -
J&S are NOT part of sovereign territory. As such, they are administered through the apparatus of belligerent occupation which is done through the military. Barak is the Israel Gov't's appointed head of the military.
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