JustASC

New NJJN columnist Jared Silverman raised a valid point about this New York Times headline and Isabel Kershner’s lede yesterday:

Jewish Nationalists Clash With Palestinians

JERUSALEM — Jewish nationalists and Palestinians clashed in an East Jerusalem neighborhood on Tuesday after the Israelis took over a house by court order in a predominantly Arab area. The confrontation further strained tensions in this contested city, where competing Israeli and Palestinian claims have become a sticking point in the Obama administration’s efforts to restart peace talks.

Jared asks:

The term “Jewish nationalists’ was used to describe Zionists who wanted to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. By using the term in the context of the headline, the NYT implies that the Palestinians have the rights to the land and the “Jewish nationalists,” aka Israelis, are the insurgents.

I’m not sure about the “insurgents” business, but I agree that the “nationalists” tag is awkward and even a little misleading.  But I think Kershner and the Times was reaching for a word for the distinct Israeli political camp that supports unlimited Jewish building and residence in predominately Arab E. Jerusalem. Arutz Sheva calls them “Land of Israel activists.” Haaretz, on the other side of spectrum, calls them “Jewish settlers.” 

I did a search of the Times web site and it seems it’s only in the past year, with the tensions increasing over E. Jerusalem, that they have occasionally used the term “Jewish nationalists” to refer to the Jews who are buying property and moving in to E. Jerusalem over the objections of Palestinians, Israeli leftists and sometimes Israeli courts.   

And as it turns out, the Times has some justification for referring to those Jews as “nationalists.” In Israel, the political party most associated with the movement calls itself the “National Union” (Ha’Ichud Ha’Leumi). When three smaller parties combined to form the party, they gathered literally under the banner of “Nationalism” (leumiut, I beleive). I’m not a linguist, but I’m pretty sure that the once-neutral term “leumi” (as in Bank Leumi) has been adopted by and associated with the Israeli far-right (or whatever you prefer to call them), the same way that liberals in this country co-opted “progressive” and the right came to own “family values.”

I’m going to ask a friend with infinitely better Hebrew skills than mine if “leumi” has indeed become Israeli shorthand for those seeking to strengthen the Jewish presence in E. Jerusalem. I’ll link you to his answer if he decides to blog about it, which I suspect he’ll do.