PALESTINE from ABOVE SURVEILLANCE, CARTOGRAPHY, CONTROL (Part 1)
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PALESTINE FROM ABOVE SURVEILLANCE, CARTOGRAPHY, CONTROL (Part 1) Combined Action: Aerial Imagery and the Urban Landscape Nadi Abusaada “Ground Truth”: Naqab from the Ground Up Eyal Weizman Spring 2020 The Mughrabi Quarter Digital Archive and the Virtual Illés Relief Initiative Maryvelma Smith O’Neil Geographical Reconnaissance by Aeroplane Photography H. Hamshaw Thomas Caught between the Lines: Dayr Ayyub Iyad Issa Granular Realism: Dominant and Counter-Dominant Practices in the Naqab Ariel Caine Politics of Portraiture: The Studio of the Krikorians Hashem Abushama INSTITUTE OF JERUSALEM STUDIES Editors: Beshara Doumani and Salim Tamari Executive Editor: Alex Winder Managing Editor: Carol Khoury Consulting Editor: Issam Nassar Editorial Committee: Rana Barakat, Rema Hammami, Penny Johnson, Nazmi Jubeh, Roberto Mazza Guest Editor for JQ 81: Yazid Anani Advisory Board: Rochelle Davis, Georgetown University, U.S. Michael Dumper, University of Exeter, U.K. Rania Elias, Yabous Cultural Centre, Jerusalem George Hintlian, Christian Heritage Institute, Jerusalem Huda al-Imam, Imam Consulting, Jerusalem Hassan Khader, al-Karmel Magazine, Ramallah Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University, U.S. Yusuf Natsheh, al-Quds University, Jerusalem Khader Salameh, al-Khalidi Library, Jerusalem Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Queen Mary University of London, U.K. Tina Sherwell, Birzeit University, Birzeit Contributing Editors: Yazid Anani, A. M. Qattan Foundation, Ramallah Khaldun Bshara, RIWAQ Centre, Ramallah Sreemati Mitter, Brown University, U.S. Falestin Naili, Institut français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo), Jordan Jacob Norris, University of Sussex, U.K. Mezna Qato, University of Cambridge, U.K. Omar Imseeh Tesdell, Birzeit University, Birzeit Hanan Toukan, Bard College Berlin, Germany The Jerusalem Quarterly (JQ) is the leading journal on the past, present, and future of Jerusalem. It documents the current status of the city and its predicaments. It is also dedicated to new and rigorous lines of inquiry by emerging scholars on Palestinian society and culture. Published since 1998 by the Institute for Palestine Studies through its affiliate, the Institute of Jerusalem Studies, theJerusalem Quarterly is available online in its entirety at www.palestine-studies.org/en/journals/jq/about. The Jerusalem Quarterly follows a double-blind peer review process for select contributions. Peer reviewed articles are indicated as such in the table of contents. This journal is produced with the financial assistance of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Palestine/ Jordan. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and therefore do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, nor those of the editors or the Institute of Jerusalem Studies. Email: [email protected] www.palestine-studies.org ISSN 2521-9731 (print version) ISSN 2521-974X (online version) Spring 2020 — Issue 81 For submissions to JQ, send email to: [email protected] For local subscriptions to JQ, contact: The Institute of Jerusalem Studies P.O. Box 21649, Jerusalem 9121501 Tel: 972 2 298 9108, Fax: 972 2 295 0767 E-mail: [email protected] For international or U.S. subscriptions, contact: The Institute for Palestine Studies 3501 M Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20007 Or subscribe at the IPS website: www.palestine-studies.org/en/journals/jq/about Spring 2020 — Issue 81 PALESTINE FROM ABOVE SURVEILLANCE, CARTOGRAPHY, CONTROL (Part 1) EDITORIAL ..........................................................................................................................................3 Nocturnal Journeys and Conquest Jerusalem from Above INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................8 Accounts of Palestine from Above Yazid Anani, Guest Editor Combined Action.................................................................................................................................20 Aerial Imagery and the Urban Landscape in Interwar Palestine, 1918–40 Nadi Abusaada Ground Truth ......................................................................................................................................37 Reading Aerial images of the Naqab from the Ground Up Eyal Weizman * The Mughrabi Quarter Digital Archive and the Virtual Illés Relief Initiative .............................52 Maryvelma Smith O’Neil Geographical Reconnaissance by Aeroplane Photography, with Special Reference to the Work Done on the Palestine Front. ...................................................................................................77 H. Hamshaw Thomas Caught between the Lines .................................................................................................................94 Cartographic Narratives of the Palestinian village of Dayr Ayyub from the First World War to the Present Iyad Issa Granular Realism..............................................................................................................................119 Dominant and Counter-Dominant Practices of Spatial Photography in the Naqab Ariel Caine Directory of the Palestinian Photo Holdings of the Bavarian War Archive ...............................128 Andreas Evaristus Mader S.D.S., translated from German by Carol Khoury DAKKAK AWARD WINNING ESSAY Politics of Portraiture: The Studio of the Krikorians ....................................................................140 Hashem Abushama LETTER FROM LYDDA ................................................................................................................153 Farewell to Najiyya al-Ash‘al (Um Hafiz) Khaled Farraj, translated from Arabic by Muhammad Ali Khalidi BOOK REVIEW ...............................................................................................................................155 Speaking in a Different Key: The Life and Art of Sophie Halaby Review by Nisa Ari FACTS & FIGURES.........................................................................................................................164 Oppression of Issawiya Neighborhood Correspondence between CAF & HUJI Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) From Gaza to al-Majdal: Ten Art Interventions ............................................................................169 * Peer reviewed article. EDITORIAL The prophet Moses caught glimpses of the Holy Land twice in his lifetime – both from the towering heights of mountains Nocturnal Journeys surrounding Palestine: the first, from and Conquest Mount Sinai when he received the tablets of the ten commandments; and the second, Jerusalem from Above from the heights of Mount Nebo across the Jordan when he led the Israelites to “the land of milk and honey” and died before fulfilling his mission. In this he was spared the bloodbaths and massacres of Jericho and Jaba‘a (Gib’on, where the sun stood still for the armies of Yehoshua bin Nun). That we need to resort to religious imagery to highlight aerial perspectives is a marker of the continued fascination with, and domination of, religion in our lives. It continues to be a dominant factor in pilgrimage, land contestation, surveillance, and urban planning, among several themes of control discussed in this issue. But Moses and the Israelites have had no monopoly on ruling the skies. Muhammad made his nocturnal journey from Mecca to Jerusalem riding the legendary Buraq, the winged horse, Jerusalem Quarterly 81 [ 3 ] later appropriated by Mobil Oil (formerly Socony-Vacuum) in its conquest of Middle Eastern petroleum. According to the four gospels, Jesus ascended to heaven after his crucifixion from the Mount of Olives, instructing his followers to remain in Jerusalem until the coming of the Holy Spirit. During World War I, British and German pilots made sketches of the landscapes from the air imbued with religious glow – this can be gloriously reviewed in the Richard and Sydney Carline WWI watercolors painted for the Royal Air Force and the Imperial War Museum above Palestine. But all subsequent strategies for control were secular, and secularized events that nevertheless continued to use religious imageries aimed at justification and popularization. Sydney Carline, Wadi Far‘a gorge (on left) and the Jordan Valley (on right), 1919; online at www.wikiwand.com/en/Sydney_Carline (accessed 18 March 2020). Two issues of the Jerusalem Quarterly (81 and 82) are devoted to the theme “Palestine from Above” which examines observing the Holy Land from the skies. The first volume addresses issues of control, surveillance, and mapping of Palestine from the early modern period of colonial penetration. This is the period that saw the American naval expedition to the Dead Sea in the 1830s, the Palestine Exploration Fund cartographic survey in the mid-nineteenth century (Conder and Wilson), and Père Antonin Jaussan’s social surveys in Nablus in 1927. The second volume will contain issues pertaining to ethnographic mapping, railroad construction, stereoscopic photography, and sketching Palestine from high altitudes. The subjects dealt with in both issues were enhanced by technological revolutions in military and civilian hardware: photography, survey mapping, aerial photography, stereoscoping imagery, and later digitization, satellite imagery, and surveillance technology. These two issues of JQ are guest-edited by Yazid Anani, the Director of the Public Programme at the A.M. Qattan Foundation and former professor of architecture at Birzeit University. The publication of the second volume