A very funny guy from London (allegedly not in London, at the moment) mentioned recently an amusing advertising for the Matte Binyamin Regional Council in the West Bank:
"Tuscany is here" - "There's no need to travel to Italy. Binyamin is at hand", reads the ad.Now, you see - I was born and raised in Tuscany, and I have always lived and worked in Tuscany, Italy. My father was born in a small village north of Florence. We still own a small plot of land in the Chianti. I can assure you, Tuscany is not there, in the Binyamin region. I've seen the pictures on http://www.binyamin.org.il - I'm pretty sure that they have decent wines to be tasted , there are probably interesting places to see, it is without a doubt closer to Israel than Italy (for an Israeli at least).
But it's no Tuscany. I am sorry if some guy from the east coast of the Mediterranean is reading this (some certainly do) but our grass is most definitely greener than yours.
The last 15-20 centuries have not been without a little turbulence here, in Tuscany, for sure, but (it's greener, much greener) there has not been a single case of a religious-ethnic group systematically entering and exploiting another ethnic group's territory, at least since the time of the Longobards.
But I read that a good number of Israelis are moving in and buying up property.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Let's see...who's more simplistic; The Binyamin Region in it's comparison to Tuscany or febo in his analysis of the Israel-Arab conflict. Bzzzz. Febo wins.
ReplyDeleteIt is of course not possible to analyze the Israeli-Arab conflict commenting on a boastful ad. But it can be surely food for thought.
ReplyDeleteWho would have thought that settlements in the occupied territories have a tourism promotional agency...
I wonder if you can add a bedroom on your house in Tuscany Italy without incurring the wrath of the American President as would
ReplyDeletehappen if yhu have a grandchild in Benjamina
like Tuscany
I would probably incur the wrath of the local bureaucrats, but that is exactly my point.
ReplyDeleteTuscany is not only greener than the Binyamin region (no offense intended, it is a statement of fact): it has also been unquestionably our land for one or two thousand years. There is really no basis in comparing it to a settlement council in the Palestinian Territories.
Did you not know that the Binjamina region -named for the Biblical Jewish tribe of Benjamin is older than Tuscany?
ReplyDeleteSorry about your local bureaucrats but world
political interference trumps them!
The "Palestinian Territories"? You mean the area into which Arabs came in 638 as conquerors and occupiers and basically extinguished Jewish communal life that existed there even after they lost political sovereignty in 135 to the Romans? The area that was ruled first by Rome until 333 when the Byzantine rule came on and then by Persia in 614 and then by Arabs in 638 as I wrote until the Crusaders? That is the Land of Israel, the country of the Jews which the entire civilized world recognized as the Jewish national home in 1920 at San Remo and again by the League of Nations in 1922. Non-Jews were to have the personal and religious rights protected therein but no political rights. Isn't it odd that the word "Arab" does not appear in connection with allthis? And that's because "Arab countries" were Egypt, Syria and Iraq - not "Palestine" which was to be the Jewish state.
ReplyDeleteI think we are referring to the same geographical area, yes...
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories
From the time of Logobards? And what about the mass killing in Monte San Savino in 1799 or the many killings of jews during the last war like that of Rignano in 1944?
ReplyDelete--
A florentine
Florentine: you are talking about episodes of violence against Jews in our region. I am talking about one ethnic-religious group entering another territory, by the power of weapons, leading to the establishment of settlements separated by the other group settlements. The last time this happened in Tuscany it was with the Lombards/Longobards, beginning in the sixth century. They were pagans, at least at the beginning and lived separately and following other laws (the leges langobardorum) than the rest of the 'italians' of the time. Of course in the following centuries foreign rule was possibly the ..rule rather than the exception, but the population and the settlements remained untouched.
ReplyDeleteDo Arab riots and pogroms against Jews in Jerusalem 1920, Jaffa 1921, Hebron 1929 count as being equal with Tuscany then even if our landscape is not as lush?
ReplyDeleteYMedad: again, that was exactly my point. It was a boastful (and slightly offensive towards Italy I might add) advertisement, both because our landscape is lushier and both because Tuscany has not been a disputed territory for centuries. I can understand that you might find unpleasant that the news of that ad is also a way - for me - to scowl at the present situation in the West Bank: of course a retread of what happened since the 1880s could proably take more space than blogspot allow us..
ReplyDeleteFebo, that is backpedaling.
ReplyDeletesayeret
Sayeret: it really isn't. As I commented earlier, foood for thought. Especially on some people's pet peeves..
ReplyDeleteQuite interestengly, the Italian translation. And no comments there.
ReplyDelete"Quite interestengly" ?
ReplyDeleteIs that you, Antonio ? :-)))))