There are many reasons to dislike Hamas. But it annoys me when people who should know better distort their position by mistranslating Arabic.
Richard Silverstein's Tikun Olam
blog reprinted an
item from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which claimed that Hamas had issued the following statement last Thursday, on the 60th anniversary of the UN Partition vote
"Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem... there is no room in it for the Jews."
Richard was skeptical of the accuracy of the translation, and, as we shall see, he had good reason to be. The source may have been an article in Maariv by Itamar Inbar. (Here is the NRG
website.) He translated the passage from the Arabic as follows (my English translation):
"Palestine is Arabic Islamic land, from the River to the Sea, including Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Churches, the Mosques, the Mountains, and the Beaches." In Hamas they said, "The Jews have no place in it (Palestine- I.I), and it is a single unity that is indivisbile."
So, there you have it -- doesn't it seem that Hamas is calling for the elimination of the Jews from Palestine?
Except that this is not what the Arabic plainly says.
What Hamas said is as follows: and this is about as literal as I can make it:
Palestine is an Arabic Islamic country from time immemorial, from its River to its Sea, with its Jerusalem, its Al-Aksa, its churches and its mosques, the Jews not having a presence in it. It is a single unity and is indivisible."
In other words, historically, Palestine was an Arab country with no Jewish presence; hence, the Jews have no national claims to it. The phrase
laysa li-l-yahud fiha wujud, literally means "the Jews having no presence/existence in it" -- but as Juan Cole pointed out to me in a private communication, the phrase "mundhu al-azal" (lit.: since eternity), apparently puts the phrase in the past tense.
There is a difference between saying, "There is no room for the Jews in Palestine" and "The Jews have never been a presence in Palestine." By mistranslating wujud and by leaving out the mundhu al-azal, and by breaking up the quotation, Inbar (deliberately?) distorted the translation.
A more accurate portrayal of the sense of the Arabic in English (thought not a direct translation) comes from Hamas' website:
“Hamas affirmed that Palestine is an Arab, Islamic country since time immemorial and Jews have no right whatsoever in the land of Palestine,”
I.e., no national rights -- since they had no presence.
Look, I am a Zionist, and I think that it is false to say that the Jews had no presence in Eretz Yisrael. But it is not false to say that for much of the middle ages and early modern period their physical presence was minimal. It certainly is not the same as saying that there will be no room for the Jews in an Islamic state. That statement goes against the Hamas Charter, antisemitic as it is, that allows for Jews and Christians to live under in an Islamic state (not something I look forward to....)
Ribono shel olam, doesn't truth count anymore? Or is distortion ok when fighting the wars of the Lord?
Whose name, by the way, is Truth.
The Arabic text is reported
here, by the way. (Thanks to Amir for providing the links.)
