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Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948 (Honorable Mention for the Albert Hourani Award, Middle Eastern Studies Association)

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I have been a big fan of Meron Benvenisti since reading _Intimate Enemies_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.) No other Israeli writer seems to balance a lucid understanding of the historical and ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people with an unashamed acceptance of his "Israeliness" as well as Benvenisti does.

In _Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948_, Benvenisti continues this balance in his descriptions of how the Israeli leadership at the birth of the State destroyed Palestinian villages and moved new immigrants into the buildings they left standing, changed Arabic names for locations into Hebrew names and Muslim holy sites into Jewish holy sites. He is perhaps uniquely qualified to discuss these issues, because his father was one of the geographers who renamed Palestinian sites in order to link them with locations from Israel's ancestral homeland.

As in his other books, Benvenisti pulls no punches for Israelis, Palestinians or even himself, as the following passages demonstrate:

"Indeed, there is no way to describe [Israeli treatment of Muslim] cemetaries other than as so shameful that in any other country it would have aroused a widespread uproar," p. 296

"And perhaps the [Palestinian] leadership's greatest failing--their having been incapable of giving any guidance, whether to stay or whether to leave-- was more grievous than the accusation that they had called upon their compatriots to flee. They had left them like sheep without a shepherd, and that disgrace could not be eradicated by laying all the blame on others," p. 124.

"The author of these lines, [i.e., Benvenisti] too, fell under the spell of the Crusader period while studying remnants of this period in the 1960's--and he, too, identified Arab castles as 'Crusader.' Some guidebooks still rely on his erroneous conclusions," p. 302

Benvenisti ends his historical analysis of the Palestinian and Israeli struggle for the landscape with the wry observation that the Zionist "struggle for the Land has become the struggle for profitable zoning." In a conclusion sure to offend both Israelis and Palestinians, he notes that "after fifty years of struggle for the landscape, the Arabs have become the last of the Zionists."

Benvenisti's epilogue to_Sacred Landscape_ is worth the price of the book. In his final pages, he offers creative alternatives to the "all or nothing" attitudes present in current Israeli/Palestinian negotiations. He notes that if the Israeli government were to provide infrastructure for the unrecognized villages to which Israeli Arab citizens were driven during the 1948 war, give building permits to these citizens, allow restoration of Arab mosques and cemetaries in communities where Jewish immigrants settled, and compensated Arab owners of land currently being sold by the State to developers, it would set a "precedent for good intentions" and signal that the state of war with the Palestinians is finally over.

Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta's translation from the Hebrew of _Sacred Landscape_ helps make it a highly readable, as well as informative, historical work.

An excellent book dealing with the changes in the physical and human landscapes of Israel/Palestine in the last half century or so. The main subject of the book is the destruction and concealment of the Arab rural civilization and culture in the part of Palestine that became Israel after 1948, and the author, a well known Israeli Jew columnist for the newspaper Haaretz, and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, does it in a magistral way. Although some of the chapters deal with matters easily acessible in other works about the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian refugees, others, such as "The Hebrew Map", "White Patches", "The Signposts of Memory", and "Saints, Peasents, and Conquerors" offer a new light and a fresh perspective on these subjects, and the author's honesty and extremely harsh criticism of Israel government policies and deeds concerning the native inhabitants of the land, is a very rare and commendable thing indeed, coming, as it does, from someone on the winning side of this ongoing conflict. If only a sizeable portion of Israeli Jews would reconize the truthfulness of the analyses in this book and support Benvenisti's suggestions in the Epilogue, this century old conflict could well start to slowly erode itself away. Being things as they are, the book at least serves to make us understand a little better the primary cause of the dispute: the almost unbelievable and utterly revolting ways the native Arab inhabitants, who constituted the large majority of the population in 1948, have been (and continue to be) treated by a long line of Zionist and Israeli actions bent on "cleaning" the land's geographies of their former Arab character. Without question, this courageous book deserves the widest possible readership.

...This book documents and details the expansion of Israel into Arab lands incrementally from 1948 even into the present. In the name of "security" Israel has continued to confiscate farms lands and homes of the Palestinian people, has continued the destruction of Palestinian homes and businesses. By the use of numerous checkpoints and road blocks -- not to mention destruction of roads, Zionist extremists have succeeded in robbing the Palestinian people of their Homeland and are destoying their economy. Meron Benvenisti, (a Jew, by the way) documents this crime of the 20th century -- about which we knew so little.

In Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1946, Meron Benvenisti attempts to document the expansion of Israel into Arab lands from 1948 to the present. Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem from 1971 to 1978 and currently a columnist for Israel's largest newspaper Haaretz, Benvenisti, details the artificial transformation of the lands which were owned and being worked by Arabs until 1948. He documents in detail what happened to Arab property during the past fifty years, bitterly indicting Israelis for maltreating the land they conquered.
In the introduction of the book, Benvenisti, as a young man, recounts accompanying his father on mapping trips that played a major role in establishing the "Hebrew map" of the land, which would later become the basis for the proclaimed territories of Israel. Identifying the Israeli advancement in the Arab territories as a Zionist conquest, he dwells on the transformation of the landscape in his homeland at the cost of physical and human transformation of the Arab lands. Benvenisti concludes the introduction of the book by arguing that "there is enough space, physical and historical, for Jews and Arabs in their shared lands."
In the first chapter, Benvenisti details the implications of the Hebrew Map. Comparing the mapmaking mission of the Zionist Jews to that of the British, he identifies the process as a means of "establishing proprietorship" and "gaining, administering, legitimizing and codifying power." Through the charting of the Hebrew map, the names of the Palestinian sites and villages and other geographical features would be substituted with Hebrew names which would relate these places to ancient Israel.
After documenting the Hebewization of the land on the cartographical level, Benvenisti presents an exhaustive account of the confiscation of the Arab lands by Israelis in the following chapters. He refers to approximately 30 settlements destroyed during and in the immediate aftermath of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. He describes the processes through which the whole landscape had to be trashed and reborn and massive killings in certain villages were carried out to cause the flight of the Arab villagers or their expulsion from their homeland. All of these contribute to the dramatic transformation of the human geography as well as the physical appearance of the landscape. Furthermore, Benvenisti puts emphasis on the erasure of the mere memory of Arab existence in the once Arab lands for centuries by implying that the Zionist project was directed towards having nothing for Arabs to come back to and erasing every detail which would relate to the memory of centuries of Arab presence in the Eretz Israel/Palestine region. Although he refrains from indicting Zionists of any "ethnic cleansing" plans before 1948, he criticizes Israeli policy for attempting to remove the entire Arab heritage on the land to prevent Arabs from coming back to their homeland.
Unlike most of the traditional post-Zionist writers, Benvenisti touches on the Palestinian right of return in the Epilogue of the book. He advocates that Palestinians, who have fled or been expelled from their homeland should either be allowed into the disputed territories or compensated by it for their losses. He believes in the possible coexistence of both Arab and Israeli population in one confederated state, through which the two populations could solve their conflicts and reach a peaceful agreement. However, Benvenisti's proposal seems to be far out of reach with regards to the current mutual resentment between the people of the two nations. It could only be realized when Israel attempts to soften its attitude vis-à-vis the Arab "right of return."
The Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948 is a well-executed study, which is unique in regard to the opinionated nature of the Benvenisti's writing. Based on his personal accounts as well as what he has acquired through history, the author attempts to reflect his own emotional and political reactions to the transformation of the landscape. The biographical prose which governs the overall tone of the book makes it easier for the readers to get a close-up picture of the landscape and clarify the author's approach to the subject at stake. The intimacy in the author's voice and the linking of the landscape to his past constructs the accessible nature of the prose. As a result, the reader easily follows the connection between what has happened and how the author has reacted to what has happened.
Although the truthfulness of the information presented in the book may not be recognized by a considerable number Isreali Jews, the book brings great insight into the persistent conflict in the Middle East. The book serves to make the readers understand the emotional, historical and political dynamics around the primary causes of the political and territorial dispute in the region. The Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948 is highly recommended for everyone, who would be interested in becoming familiar with the anti-Zionist Jewish perspective of the subject at stake. In order to have a fair and judgmental approach vis-à-vis the conflict, the book should be accompanied with other scholarly studies which would bring into play further factual analyses as well as political and biographical interpretations of the narrative.

This book presents a highly interesting and somewhat personal account of one of the lesser-known tragedies of the last century. In "Sacred Landscape", Meron Benvenisti, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, recounts to us the story of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the lands that became Israel in 1948. The tone of the book is at times remorseful, for example as Benvenisti recalls how his own father took part in the mapping of the Negev - an exercise of claiming ownership to the land by giving it a Hebrew name. As we learn in later chapters, this mostly symbolic act of renaming the map is just the beginning of an organized policy to expel Palestinian natives and destroy the evidence in order to prevent their return. The book is very well-written, clear, and easy to read, which are rare traits for such a well-researched scholarly book. Many little-known facts are revealed, such as the working of Jewish intelligence agencies at the time and the accumulation of "Village Dossiers" on every Arab village. The research relies much on primary sources and recently de-classified Israeli documents, and is impeccably thorough. At the same time, Benvenisti never shies from presenting a human perspective to these events, recounting his own personal encounters with Arabs prior to 1948. The book also covers the period after Israel came into being, illuminating the reader on many widespread topics: how the evacuated Palestinian property was managed; what agencies and by what laws were it expropriated; the fate of the religious sites and the legal battles for their restoration, etc.

"Sacred Landscapes" is jam-packed with accurate information, information that is crucial for understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and is therefore worth every penny. There is much in here to satisfy every kind of reader: the detective story, the human story, the historical account, and a study of political machinations. Whatever one's background is, one cannot read this book without sharing its author's regret about the things that were lost forever beneath that sacred landscape.

Meron Benvenisti is a real expert on Israel and her history. Though this book is a bit rough going it is worth the effort. He shows the history of the current struggle in Israel/ Palestine and his writing is trustworthy, especially since he is a main participant in solving the seemingly insolvable. You will have new insights into the Holy LandS.

This book presents a highly interesting and somewhat personal account of one of the lesser-known tragedies of the last century. In "Sacred Landscape", Meron Benvenisti, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, recounts to us the story of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the lands that became Israel in 1948. The tone of the book is at times remorseful, for example as Benvenisti recalls how his own father took part in the mapping of the Negev - an exercise of claiming ownership to the land by giving it a Hebrew name. As we learn in later chapters, this mostly symbolic act of renaming the map is just the beginning of an organized policy to expel Palestinian natives and destroy the evidence in order to prevent their return. The book is very well-written, clear, and easy to read, which are rare traits for such a well-researched scholarly book. Many little-known facts are revealed, such as the working of Jewish intelligence agencies at the time and the accumulation of "Village Dossiers" on every Arab village. The research relies much on primary sources and recently de-classified Israeli documents, and is impeccably thorough. At the same time, Benvenisti never shies from presenting a human perspective to these events, recounting his own personal encounters with Arabs prior to 1948. The book also covers the period after Israel came into being, illuminating the reader on many widespread topics: how the evacuated Palestinian property was managed; what agencies and by what laws were it expropriated; the fate of the religious sites and the legal battles for their restoration, etc.

"Sacred Landscapes" is jam-packed with accurate information, information that is crucial for understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and is therefore worth every penny. There is much in here to satisfy every kind of reader: the detective story, the human story, the historical account, and a study of political machinations. Whatever one's background is, one cannot read this book without sharing its author's regret about the things that were lost forever beneath that sacred landscape.

The book is well researched, but the subject is better covered in any one of Benny Morris's books. Morris's One State, Two States effectively demolishes Benvenisti's argument in favor of a "bi-national" state.

This History of the Holy Land brings great insight into the present conflict in the Middle East. Mr. Benvenisti, the former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem was a child who traveled with his Zionist father to survey and map Palestine. His father was charged with a survey of all Arab villages, as well as mapping them with Hebrew names. When he grew up Benvenisti returned to these places and found them 500 of them demolished. He chronicles the conquest of Palestine. He documents how it happened that the Arabs were forced out of what is now the Israeli State. He talks about the "present but absent" technique of depriving villagers and farmers from returning to their land after the cessation of hostilities. And he writes about the persistant building of settlements on land confiscated from Palestinians -- and how the strategy of settlement building is meant to facilitate "facts" on the ground enabling the ultimate claim to all of Palestine for Israel.

The author was an assistant Mayor of Jerusalem under Teddy Kolleck. He has the experience and the mind to make him a true authority on the land of Israel, the land that once and will one day be again "Palestine." He's brilliant and even if not easy to read, should be read by anyone interested in the Middle East, a large audience.