Sacred landscape
Subtitle: the buried history of the Holy Land since 1948
By: Meron Benvenisti ; translated by Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Berkeley
Language: eng
Number of pages: 366
Subjects: Israel-Arab War, 1948-1949 -- Refugees; Names, Geographical -- Israel -- History; Arab-Israeli conflict -- Social aspects; Villages -- Israel -- History; Palestinian Arabs -- Israel -- History -- 20th century; Israel -- Historical geography; Israel -- Ethnic relations
Description: "As a Young Man, Meron Benvenisti often accompanied his father, a distinguished geographer, when the elder Benvenisti traveled through the Holy Land charting a Hebrew map that would rename Palestinian sites and villages with names linked to Israel's ancestral homeland. Benvenisti's youthful experiences are central to this book, and his story helps explain how an Arab landscape, both physical and human, was transformed into an Israeli, Jewish state.".

"Benvenisti discusses the process by which new Hebrew nomenclature replaced the Arabic names of more than 9,000 natural features, villages, and ruins in Eretz Israel/Palestine. He then explains how the Arab landscape has been transformed through war, destruction, and expulsion into a flourishing Jewish homeland accommodating millions of immigrants.

The resulting encounters between two peoples who claim the same land have raised great moral and political dilemmas, which Benvenisti presents with candor and impartiality."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 341-352) and index