10.3 Disappearing Palestinian Villages And Place Names Before 1948


During the pre-state period the Zionist Yishuv in Palestine developed four key strategies:

• The widespread use of the term Palestine in tandem with Eretz Israel in Zionism (late 19th century until 1948).

• Appropriation of Arab names, hybridisation of names of Jewish settlements and indigenisation of the settlers.

• Instrumentalisation of the myth-narratives of the Bible and ‘restorationist’ biblical archaeology: Hebrewisation and biblicisation of Palestinian Arabic toponyms.

• Utilisation of the toponymic lists of the Palestine Exploration Fund and the works of Western biblical archaeologists.