Majina ya maeneo ya Palestina yalianza kubadilishwa na majina yanayotokana na Biblia na yenye sauti ya Kiebrania wakati wa kipindi cha mwishoni mwa utawala wa Ottoman na kipindi cha Mamlaka ya Uingereza, na vijiji vidogo vya Palestina vilianza kutoweka kwenye ramani, ingawa Wapalestina wenyeji waliendelea kutumia majina asilia kwa makoloni mapya ya Kizayuni. Desturi hizi za "kudai tena kwa kubadilisha majina", huku zikiondoa majina asilia, zilikuwa muhimu katika ukoloni wa ardhi ya Palestina na kama njia ya kuunda utambulisho wa pamoja wa Kizayuni wa Kiebrania "halisi" uliojikita katika "ardhi ya Biblia". Akirejelea waziwazi jinsi majina ya maeneo ya Kiarabu (na vijiji vya Palestina) yalivyobadilishwa polepole kwa majina ya Kiebrania (na makazi ya Kiyahudi) wakati wa kipindi cha Mamlaka, Waziri wa Ulinzi wa Israel Moshe Dayan – mwandishi wa kitabu Living with the Hebrew Bible (1978) – alisema yafuatayo katika hotuba ya Aprili 1969 kwa wanafunzi wa Technion, Taasisi maarufu ya Teknolojia ya Israel huko Haifa:

Palestinian place names began to be replaced by biblical and Hebrewsounding names during the late Ottoman and Mandatory periods and small Palestinian villages began to disappear from the map, although local Palestinians continued to use the indigenous names for the new Zionist colonies. These practices of ‘reclaiming by renaming’, while displacing the indigenous names, were pivotal to the colonisation of the land of Palestine and as a language of creating an ‘authentic’ collective Zionist Hebrew identity rooted in the ‘land of the Bible’. Referring candidly to the gradual replacement of Arabic place names (and of Palestinian villages) by Hebrew place names (and Jewish settlements) during the Mandatory period, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dayan – the author of Living with the Hebrew Bible (1978) – had this to say in an address in April 1969 to students at the Technion, Israel’s prestigious Institute of Technology in Haifa:

Vijiji vya Kiyahudi vilijengwa mahali pa vijiji vya Kiarabu. Hujui hata majina ya vijiji hivi, na sikulaumu kwa hilo, kwa sababu vitabu vya jiografia havipo tena. Si vitabu tu visivyokuwepo; vijiji vya Kiarabu pia havipo. Nahlal ilijengwa mahali pa Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat mahali pa Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid mahali pa Hunefis; na Kefar Yehoshua mahali pa Tal al-Shuman. Hakuna hata mahali pamoja palipojengwa katika nchi hii ambapo hapakuwa na wakazi Waarabu hapo awali.17

Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Hunefis; and Kefar Yehoshua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that didn’t have a former Arab population.17

Dayan (1915–1981), ambaye alizungumza Kiarabu, alijiona mwenyewe kuwa sabra wa kawaida, na pia ndivyo alivyochukuliwa na wenzake, walowezi wa Kizungu. Alizaliwa katika Kibbutz Degania Alef huko Palestina kabla wazazi wake hawajahamia Nahlal, iliyoanzishwa mwaka 1921. Baba yake Shmuel Kitaigorodsky (ambaye alihudumu katika vikao vitatu vya kwanza vya Knesset ya Israeli) alizaliwa Zhashkov, katika Ukraine ya leo, alihamia Palestina mwaka 1908 na kulifanya jina lake kuwa la Kiebrania, Dayan, neno la Kiebrania linalomaanisha hakimu katika mahakama za kidini za Kiyahudi. Kwa mujibu wa propaganda za Kizayuni, jina Nahlal linatokana na kijiji cha kibiblia (Yoshua 19:15).

Dayan (1915–1981), who spoke Arabic, considered himself and was considered by his fellow European settlers as a typical sabra. He was born in Kibbutz Degania Alef in Palestine before his parents moved to Nahlal, founded in 1921. His father Shmuel Kitaigorodsky (who served in the first three sessions of the Israeli Knesset) was born in Zhashkov, modern-day Ukraine, immigrated to Palestine in 1908 and Hebraicised his name to Dayan, Hebrew for a judge in Jewish religious courts. According to Zionist propaganda the name Nahlal derived from a biblical village (Joshua 19:15).

Lakini Moshe Dayan alijua na alikuwa tayari kukiri hadharani kwamba jina la makazi yake mwenyewe (moshav), Nahlal, kwa hakika lilikuwa tafsiri ya Kiebrania ya jina la kijiji cha Kiarabu cha Kipalestina lililokibadilisha, Mahlul. Hata hivyo, ili kulipa "uhalisi wa kibiblia", jina la Nahlal lenye sauti ya Kiebrania liliunganishwa na Wazayuni na jina lililotajwa katika Biblia ya Kiebrania. Pia, Kibbutz Gvat, iliyoanzishwa mwaka 1926, ilikuwa tafsiri ya Kiebrania ya jina la zamani la mahali la Kiarabu, kijiji cha Kipalestina cha Jibta. Gvat pia ilikumbusha jina la Kiaramu Gvata (lenye maana ya kilima) na jina la kibiblia huko Galilaya.

Yet Moshe Dayan knew and was prepared to acknowledge publicly that the name of his own settlement (moshav), Nahlal, was in fact a Hebrew rendering of the name of the Palestinian Arabic village name it had replaced, Mahlul; however, to give it a ‘biblical authenticity’, the Hebrew-sounding Nahlal was linked by the Zionists to a name mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Also, Kibbutz Gvat, set up in 1926, was a Hebrew rendering of the former Arabic place name, the Palestinian village Jibta; Gvat also echoed the Aramaic name Gvata (meaning hill) and a biblical name in the Galilee.

Kati ya mambo makuu katika kujenga utambulisho wa pamoja wa Kizayuni, na baadaye wa Kiisraeli, uliojengwa juu ya "kumbukumbu ya Biblia", kulikuwa na miradi ya majina ya mahali ya Yishuv iliyoanzishwa miaka ya 1920 ili "kurejesha" Kiebrania cha Biblia au kuunda majina mapya yanayosikika kibiblia yenye maana ya ishara kwa ukombozi wa Kizayuni wa ardhi na ukoloni wa Palestina (Ra'ad 2010: 189). Miaka ya 1920, ardhi ya Wadi al-Hawarith18 ya Kipalestina katika eneo la pwani ilinunuliwa ("ikombolewa") na Mfuko wa Kitaifa wa Kiyahudi kutoka kwa wamiliki wa ardhi wa Kiarabu waliokuwa hawaishi humo, jambo lililopelekea baadaye kufukuzwa kwa wakulima wengi wa Kiarabu. Makazi ya Kiyahudi ya Kfar Haro'e yalianzishwa mwaka 1934 katika ardhi hizi.

Central to the construction of Zionist collective identity, and subsequently Israeli identity, based on ‘biblical memory’ was the Yishuv toponymic projects established in the 1920s to ‘restore’ biblical Hebrew or to create new biblical-sounding names of symbolic meaning to Zionist redemption of the land and colonisation of Palestine (Ra’ad 2010: 189). In the 1920s the Palestinian land of Wadi al-Hawarith18 in the coastal region was purchased (‘redeemed’) by the Jewish National Fund from Arab absentee landlords, subsequently leading to the eviction of many Arab farmers. The Jewish settlement of Kfar Haro’e was established in 1934 on these lands.

Jina la Kiarabu lilibadilishwa kuwa Emek Hefer, lenye sauti ya Kiebrania (Bonde la Hefer). Katika baadhi ya visa, utaiti wa majina ya maeneo wa walowezi wa Kizayuni wa Kiebrania ulitafsiri tu majina ya Kiarabu kuwa Kiebrania. Miaka ya 1920, Kamati ya Kuteua Majina ya JNF iliundwa ili kutaja makoloni mapya ya Kiyahudi yaliyoanzishwa Palestina, kwa lengo la kushindana na ramani iliyojaa majina ya Kiarabu ya nchi hiyo. Juhudi zake za kubadilisha majina zilipokelewa vyema na mamlaka ya Uingereza ya Mamlaka ya Kimandati, na zikaingizwa katika gazeti rasmi la serikali ya Palestina (Benvenisti 2002: 26).

The Arabic name was rendered into the Hebrew-sounding Emek Hefer (the Hefer Valley). In some cases the Zionist Hebrew colonising toponymy simply translated Arabic names into Hebrew. In the 1920s a JNF Naming Committee was set up to name the newly established Jewish colonies in Palestine to compete with the overwhelmingly Arabic map of the country; its renaming efforts were appreciated by the British Mandatory authorities and were incorporated into the Palestine government’s official gazette (Benvenisti 2002: 26).

Katika kipindi cha kabla ya mwaka 1948, majina mengi mapya ya Kiebrania ya maeneo yalichukua nafasi ya majina ya Kiarabu. Kwa mfano, makazi ya kwanza ya Kizayuni huko Palestina, Petah Tikva, yalianzishwa awali mwaka 1878 (yakaachwa kisha yakaanzishwa upya mwaka 1882), kwenye ardhi ya kijiji cha Wapalestina cha Mlabbis, kilichoharibiwa, na hatimaye yakachukua nafasi yake. Petah Tikva inajulikana katika historia ya Kizayuni kama Im Hamoshavot – ‘Mama wa Makoloni’. Waasisi wa kidini wa Kizayuni walisema kwamba jina Petah Tikva lilitokana na unabii wa kibiblia wa Hosea (2:17). Ardhi ya Petah Tikva ilinunuliwa kutoka kwa wamiliki wawili wa ardhi Waarabu waliokuwa wakiishi nje ya nchi, wenye makazi yao Jaffa, Salim al-Kassar na Anton al-Tayyan. Miongo sita baada ya Nakba, raia Wapalestina wa Israeli bado wanaliita jiji la Kiyahudi la Petah Tikva ‘Mlabbis’. Makazi ya Kizayuni ya Rehovot yalianzishwa mwaka 1890 na yalipewa jina pia kutokana na jina lililotajwa katika Biblia ya Kiebrania, lakini jina hilo lilikuwa katika eneo tofauti kabisa katika Jangwa la Negev. Rehovot ilianzishwa na wafanyabiashara na wachuuzi Wayahudi wa tabaka la kati mnamo tarehe 10,000

In the pre-1948 period many new Hebrew place names displaced the Arabic names: for instance, the first Zionist settlement in Palestine, Petah Tikva, was originally set up in 1878 (deserted and then re-established in 1882), on the lands of, and eventually replacing, the destroyed Palestinian village of Mlabbis. Petah Tikva is known in Zionist historiography as Im Hamoshavot – the ‘Mother of the Colonies’. The Zionist religious founders stated that the name Petah Tikva came from the biblical prophecy of Hosea (2:17). The land of Petah Tikva was bought from two Arab absentee landlords based in Jaffa, Salim al-Kassar and Anton al-Tayyan. Six decades after the Nakba, Palestinian citizens of Israel still call the Jewish city of Petah Tikva ‘Mlabbis’. The Zionist colony of Rehovot was founded in 1890 and was also called after a name mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, but which stood at a completely different location in the Negev Desert. Rehovot was set up by middle class Jewish businessmen and merchants on 10,000

ekari (dunum) za ardhi zilizonunuliwa kutoka kwa wamiliki wa ardhi Waarabu, zikiwahamisha wakazi wa kijiji cha Kipalestina cha Khirbet Duran.

dunums of land purchased from Arab landlords, displacing the Palestinian village of Khirbet Duran.

Zionism ya kidunia ya Kiyahudi ilikuwa mfano wa kawaida wa uvumbuzi wa taifa katika Ulaya ya mwishoni mwa karne ya 19, na mradi wa kuunganisha taifa jipya. Mapokeo haya yaliyovumbuliwa yaliwachukulia Wayahudi kama kabila na kundi la kibaiolojia, na yalikopa kwa wingi kutoka kwa utaifa wa kimapenzi wa Ulaya ya Kati na Mashariki. Uzayuni wa kisiasa ulitumia simulizi la kibiblia lililobuniwa upya, lililofanyiwa marekebisho mwishoni mwa karne ya 19 kwa malengo ya kisiasa ya harakati ya kisasa ya Ulaya iliyokusudia kuikoloni ardhi ya Palestina. Kama mapokeo ya kisasa (ya Ulaya) yaliyovumbuliwa, Uzayuni ulilazimika kuwa mradi wa kuunganisha mambo mbalimbali. Mwanazuoni wa Israeli Ronit Lentin ametoa hoja yenye nguvu katika kitabu chake *Israel and the Daughters of the Shoah: Reoccupying the Territories of Silence* (2000) kwamba utaifa wa Israeli wenye sura ya kiume na wa kijeshi umejengwa kwa kupingana na "Mwingine" aliyefanywa "wa kike". Waasisi wa Uzayuni walibuni upya jumuiya mpya ya Waebrania kwa upinzani kamili dhidi ya diaspora ya Kiyahudi waliyoidharau, iliyoshindwa kupinga chuki dhidi ya Wayahudi ya Ulaya iliyopelekea Holocaust. Dharau ya Uzayuni kwa Wayahudi wa diaspora na kukataa kwake diaspora "ya kike", pamoja na mapenzi yake ya kuunganisha taifa, vinaonekana katika ukweli kwamba alama zake zilikuwa mchanganyiko, zilizochaguliwa si tu kutoka dini ya Kiyahudi na sehemu za kijeshi za Biblia ya Kiebrania, bali pia kutoka mapokeo na vyanzo mbalimbali vya kisasa. Alama hizo baadaye zilitwaliwa kama "za utaifa wa Kiyahudi", za Uzayuni au za "Kiisraeli": wimbo wa taifa wa Israeli, *ha-Tikva*, ulitoka kwa mwanamuziki wa kitaifa wa Kicheki, Smetana; muziki mwingi unaotumika katika nyimbo za kizalendo za Israeli ulitokana na nyimbo za kiasili za Kirusi; hata neno la Myahudi aliyezaliwa Israeli aliye huru kutokana na "maradhi na kasoro zote za uhamishoni" ni kwa kweli neno la Kiarabu *sabar*, lililofanywa Kiebrania kuwa *tzabar* au *sabra* (la kiume na gumu) (Bresheeth 1989: 131), yaani tunda la mmea wa mkongoma (prickly pear) unaokua katika na karibu na mamia ya vijiji vya Kipalestina vilivyoharibiwa na Israeli mwaka 1948. Hata wimbo wa taifa wa Vita vya Siku Sita, wimbo wa No'ami Shemer "Yerusalemu ya Dhahabu", ulinakiliwa kwa wizi kutoka kwa wimbo wa kulalia watoto wa Kibaski (Masalha 2007: 20, 39). Wakitafuta kujenga utambulisho "halisi, wa kiasili", wakoloni Wayahudi wa Ulaya Mashariki walidai kuwakilisha watu wa asili waliorejea nchini mwao baada ya kutokuwepo kwa miaka 2000; kwa kweli, raia wa Urusi au Ukraine ndio waliounda kiini kigumu cha harakati za Uzayuni.

Secular Jewish Zionism was a classic case of the invention of a people in late 19th century Europe and a project for synthesising a nation. This invented tradition considered the Jews as a race and a biological group, and borrowed heavily from romantic nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe. Political Zionism mobilised an imagined biblical narrative which was reworked in the late 19th century for the political purposes of a modern European movement intent on colonising the land of Palestine. As an invented late modern (European) tradition, Zionism was bound to be a synthesising project. As Israeli scholar Ronit Lentin has powerfully argued in Israel and the Daughters of the Shoah: Reoccupying the Territories of Silence (2000), the Israeli masculinised and militarised nationalism has been constructed in opposition to a ‘feminised’ Other. The founding fathers of Zionism reimagined the New Hebrew collectivity in total opposition to the despised Jewish diaspora unable to resist European anti-Semitism which led to the Holocaust. Zionism’s contempt for diaspora Jews and rejection of a ‘feminised’ diaspora and its obsession with synthesising a nation is reflected in the fact that its symbols were an amalgam, chosen not only from the Jewish religion and the militant parts of the Hebrew Bible but also from diverse modern traditions and sources, symbols subsequently appropriated as ‘Jewish nationalist’, Zionist or ‘Israeli’: the music of Israel’s national anthem, ha-Tikva, came from the Czech national musician, Smetana; much of the music used in nationalist Israeli songs originated in Russian folk-songs; even the term for an Israeli-born Jew free of all the ‘maladies and abnormalities of exile’ is in fact the Arabic word sabar, Hebraicised as (masculine and tough) tzabar or sabra (Bresheeth 1989: 131), the prickly pear grown in and around the hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed by Israel in 1948. Even the ‘national anthem of the Six Day War’, No’ami Shemer’s song ‘Jerusalem of Gold’, was a plagiarised copy of a Basque lullaby (Masalha 2007: 20, 39). Seeking to create an ‘authentic, nativised’ identity, the East European Jewish colonists claimed to represent an indigenous people returning to its homeland after 2000 years of absence; in fact Russian or Ukrainian nationals formed the hard core of Zionist activism.

Afula ni mji wa Israeli katika wilaya ya kaskazini unaojulikana mara nyingi kama 'Mji Mkuu wa Bonde' kutokana na eneo lake la kimkakati katika Bonde la Yezreeli (Marj ibn ‘Amer).

Afula is an Israeli city in the northern district often known as the ‘Capital of the Valley’ due to its strategic location in the Jezreel Valley (Marj ibn ‘Amer).

Kilianzishwa mwaka 1925 na walowezi wa Kizayuni baada ya ununuzi wa maeneo makubwa (dunamu 60,000) ya ardhi ya Waarabu kutoka kwa wamiliki wa ardhi Waarabu wasiokuwepo wa familia ya Sursuk huko Beirut, ununuzi uliofanywa na Yehoshua Hankin (1864–1945), mwanaharakati aliyezaliwa Urusi, ambaye alihusika na sehemu kubwa ya ununuzi mkubwa wa ardhi kwa ajili ya Jewish Colonial Association katika Palestina ya mwishoni mwa enzi ya Dola ya Ottoman na mwanzoni mwa enzi ya Mamlaka ya Uingereza. Ardhi hizi zilikuja kuwa eneo la koloni nyingi mpya za Kizayuni, zikiwemo Nahlal ya Dayan, Giva, Ein Harod, Kfar Yehezkel, Beit Alfa na Tel Yosef, makazi ambayo yalichukua nafasi ya vijiji kadhaa vya Kipalestina vilivyotoweka kwenye ramani, baadhi yake vikitajwa na Dayan hapo juu.

It was founded in 1925 by Zionist settlers after the purchase of large tracts (60,000 dunums) of Arab land from the Arab absentee landlords of the Sursuk family in Beirut by Yehoshua Hankin (1864–1945), the Russian-born activist who was responsible for most of the major land purchases for the Jewish Colonial Association in late Ottoman Palestine and early Mandatory Palestine. These tracts became the site of numerous new Zionist colonies, including Dayan’s Nahlal, Giva, Ein Harod, Kfar Yehezkel, Beit Alfa and Tel Yosef, settlements which replaced several Palestinian villages that disappeared from the map, some of which are mentioned by Dayan above.

Etimolojia ya jina la makazi ya walowezi Wazayuni Afula linatokana na jina la kijiji cha Waarabu wa Kipalestina cha al-Fuleh, ambacho mwaka 1226 mwanajiografia wa Kiarabu Yaqut al-Hamawi alikitaja kuwa mji katika mkoa wa Jund Filastin. Jina la mahali la Kiarabu al-Fuleh limetokana na neno ful, yaani maharagwe ya fava, ambayo ni miongoni mwa mimea ya chakula ya kale kabisa Mashariki ya Kati na ambayo yalilimwa kwa wingi na Wapalestina wenyeji katika Marj Ibn ‘Amer. Kijiji cha Kipalestina cha al-Fuleh chenyewe kiliondolewa watu wake wakati wa kipindi cha Mamlaka ya Uingereza. Ardhi ya dunamu 9,500 za al-Fuleh, ambayo pia ikawa eneo la makazi ya Wayahudi ya Merhavya, iliashiria mwanzo wa mapambano makali kati ya Wapalestina wenyeji na walowezi Wazayuni kuhusu haki za wakulima wapangaji wa Palestina waliokuwa wamefukuzwa, na hatimaye ikaleta mlipuko wa uasi wa wakulima wa Kipalestina wa mwaka 1936‒1939. Akitafakari mijadala ya ndani ya Kizayuni kuhusu 'uhamisho', Berl Katznelson, mmoja wa viongozi maarufu na wenye ushawishi mkubwa wa chama kikuu cha Mapai, alisema hivi katika mjadala katika Mkutano wa Dunia wa Ihud Po’alei Tzion (jukwaa kuu la harakati kuu ya wafanyakazi ya Kizayuni duniani), mwezi Agosti 1937: