Palestine from Above SURVEILLANCE, CARTOGRAPHY, CONTROL (Part 2)
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Palestine from Above SURVEILLANCE, CARTOGRAPHY, CONTROL (Part 2) “Along the Wings of a Tornado”:The Aerial Aesthetics of Frank Hurley in Palestine Andrew Yip and Emma Crott History Turns Space into Place: A French Voyage to the Dead Sea Basin in 1864 Summer 2020 Isotta Poggi The Tale of Two Villages: New Perspective on the Historic Palestinian Landscape Jeffrey C. Howry Perceiving Palestine: British Visions of the Holy Land Michael Talbot, Anne Caldwell, Chloe Emmott Palestine in the Imagination of the Imperial German Self: Gustav Dalman and the Bavarian War Archive Sarah El Bulbeisi Late Ottoman Visions of Palestine: Railroads, Maps, and Aerial Photography Zeynep Çelik and Zeinab Azarbadegan 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 82: 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) Summer 2020 — Issue 82 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 Summer 2020 — Issue 82 PALESTINE FROM ABOVE SURVEILLANCE, CARTOGRAPHY, CONTROL (Part 2) EDITORIAL .............................................................................................................................................3 The Potter, the Poet, and Storytelling: Palestine from Above II Yazid Anani, Guest Editor “Along the Wings of a Tornado”:The Aerial Aesthetics of Frank Hurley in Palestine ...................10 Andrew Yip and Emma Crott History Turns Space into Place: A French Voyage to the Dead Sea Basin in 1864 ..........................23 Isotta Poggi The Tale of Two Villages: New Perspective on the Historic Palestinian Landscape ........................38 Jeffrey C. Howry Perceiving Palestine: British Visions of the Holy Land ......................................................................50 Michael Talbot, Anne Caldwell, Chloe Emmott Palestine in the Imagination of the Imperial German Self: Gustav Dalman and the Bavarian War Archive ...........................................................................................................................77 Sarah El Bulbeisi Late Ottoman Visions of Palestine: Railroads, Maps, and Aerial Photography ..............................87 Zeynep Çelik and Zeinab Azarbadegan Jerusalem Demography: History, Transitions, and Forecasts .........................................................110 Rassem Khamaisi, translation from Arabic by Yasmin Foqahaa Beyond the Boundaries of “The Land of the Deer”: R. Binyamin between Jewish and Arab Geographies, and the Critique of the Zionist-Colonial Connection ...............................130 Avi-ram Tzoreff LETTER FROM JERUSALEM ........................................................................................................154 I Witness Silwan: Who is Watching Whom? Susan Greene BOOK REVIEW ..................................................................................................................................168 Are You Coming With a Bulldozer to Silwan?: Palestinian Guides to Jerusalem and Its Environs Penny Johnson OBITUARY ..........................................................................................................................................174 In Memory of Albert Aghazarian: The Alleys of Jerusalem Will Miss You Nazmi Jubeh, translation from Arabic by Samira Jabaly EDITORIAL If God is the first potter, creating man out of mud, and if man’s creation of idols has always been the greatest sin in The Potter, the Poet, monotheistic religions (by approximating and Storytelling the perfection of art created by the divine artist), then it is the artists who echoed Palestine from Above 2 the creative discourse – ranging from cave drawings, Babylonian temples, Yazid Anani, Guest Editor Egyptian reliefs, Byzantine iconography, and Italian renaissance paintings – and who imposed new images to existing meta-narratives. And if God is the first poet, whose words are inscribed in the commandments of the sacred texts, then poetry is the ultimate sin, and poets are the impersonation of the divine power of scripture. That is why in Arabic the poet is known as mash‘ur and majdhub – “smitten” and “deranged” by the divinity. Nonetheless, heresy has surpassed the ability of man to perfect pottery and the language of poetry. Artists moved from the flight of words, to the physical attempts at elevating themselves and creating instruments of flying. Since the mid-nineteenth century airborne cameras via balloons, kites, dirigibles, airplanes, satellites, and drones have contributed largely in mapping terrains, surveilling human activities, and studying urban morphology as well as earth’s ecology. Throughout the pre-modern ages, humanity gazed up towards the celestial in a desire to locate itself in the universe with cosmological yearnings to resolve humanity’s existential questions: How was the world created? Where are we going, and where do we stand within the universal spatial temporal context? In geometry, surveying, and structural mechanics, humans created terrestrial monuments that had cosmological Jerusalem Quarterly 82 [ 3 ] alignment and significance. These monuments were constructed to be seen by the deities of the skies. Neolithic stone circles, Mesopotamian ziggurats, Egyptian and Mayan pyramids and obelisks, the Nazca Lines, Hindu temples, Cretan nature sanctuaries, Mycenaean citadels, and others were all expressions of a terrestrial connection with the cosmos and a response to the gaze of celestial gods and goddesses who controlled earth. This gaze has been inverted with the emergence of aviation and aerial technology. It is not only the elevated skills of poetry and pottery that the human has acquired but also the skill of the celestial power of gazing on humanity itself from the sky. The idea of the exhibition “Palestine From Above” came while Salim Tamari and I were investigating one of the aerial images of al-Bireh from the Bavarian State Archives. We were trying to demystify the location of the mysterious railway which was constructed at the end of WWI between Jerusalem and al-Balu‘ area in al-Bireh. What struck me most was my inability to relate the aerial point of view to the familiar landscape of al-Balu‘ where I lived for most of my childhood. Although, the landscape has been altered dramatically, I felt helpless by my incapacity to understand the landscape in that image through its topographic features. This drove the idea of an exhibition that could be a means of enabling us to understand how the Palestinian landscape has been first perceived, and then transformed, from the sky. “Palestine from Above” juxtaposes layers of collected historic material with artworks, using a process of research conducted by the Qattan Foundation “Hercules,” in Kitab ṣuwar al-kawakib [Book of the Constellations of and its partners the Fixed Stars], ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Umar al-Sufi (1009–10), Bodleian in 2019–20. The Library, Oxford, 80; available from wikimedia commons, online at research explored bit.ly/2NetkC9 (accessed 15 June 2020). [ 4 ] The Potter, the Poet,