In Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1946, Meron Benvenisti attempts to document the expansion of Israel into Arab lands from 1948 to the present. Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem from 1971 to 1978 and currently a columnist for Israel's largest newspaper Haaretz, Benvenisti, details the artificial transformation of the lands which were owned and being worked by Arabs until 1948. He documents in detail what happened to Arab property during the past fifty years, bitterly indicting Israelis for maltreating the land they conquered.
In the introduction of the book, Benvenisti, as a young man, recounts accompanying his father on mapping trips that played a major role in establishing the "Hebrew map" of the land, which would later become the basis for the proclaimed territories of Israel. Identifying the Israeli advancement in the Arab territories as a Zionist conquest, he dwells on the transformation of the landscape in his homeland at the cost of physical and human transformation of the Arab lands. Benvenisti concludes the introduction of the book by arguing that "there is enough space, physical and historical, for Jews and Arabs in their shared lands."
In the first chapter, Benvenisti details the implications of the Hebrew Map. Comparing the mapmaking mission of the Zionist Jews to that of the British, he identifies the process as a means of "establishing proprietorship" and "gaining, administering, legitimizing and codifying power." Through the charting of the Hebrew map, the names of the Palestinian sites and villages and other geographical features would be substituted with Hebrew names which would relate these places to ancient Israel.
After documenting the Hebewization of the land on the cartographical level, Benvenisti presents an exhaustive account of the confiscation of the Arab lands by Israelis in the following chapters. He refers to approximately 30 settlements destroyed during and in the immediate aftermath of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. He describes the processes through which the whole landscape had to be trashed and reborn and massive killings in certain villages were carried out to cause the flight of the Arab villagers or their expulsion from their homeland. All of these contribute to the dramatic transformation of the human geography as well as the physical appearance of the landscape. Furthermore, Benvenisti puts emphasis on the erasure of the mere memory of Arab existence in the once Arab lands for centuries by implying that the Zionist project was directed towards having nothing for Arabs to come back to and erasing every detail which would relate to the memory of centuries of Arab presence in the Eretz Israel/Palestine region. Although he refrains from indicting Zionists of any "ethnic cleansing" plans before 1948, he criticizes Israeli policy for attempting to remove the entire Arab heritage on the land to prevent Arabs from coming back to their homeland.
Unlike most of the traditional post-Zionist writers, Benvenisti touches on the Palestinian right of return in the Epilogue of the book. He advocates that Palestinians, who have fled or been expelled from their homeland should either be allowed into the disputed territories or compensated by it for their losses. He believes in the possible coexistence of both Arab and Israeli population in one confederated state, through which the two populations could solve their conflicts and reach a peaceful agreement. However, Benvenisti's proposal seems to be far out of reach with regards to the current mutual resentment between the people of the two nations. It could only be realized when Israel attempts to soften its attitude vis-à-vis the Arab "right of return."
The Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948 is a well-executed study, which is unique in regard to the opinionated nature of the Benvenisti's writing. Based on his personal accounts as well as what he has acquired through history, the author attempts to reflect his own emotional and political reactions to the transformation of the landscape. The biographical prose which governs the overall tone of the book makes it easier for the readers to get a close-up picture of the landscape and clarify the author's approach to the subject at stake. The intimacy in the author's voice and the linking of the landscape to his past constructs the accessible nature of the prose. As a result, the reader easily follows the connection between what has happened and how the author has reacted to what has happened.
Although the truthfulness of the information presented in the book may not be recognized by a considerable number Isreali Jews, the book brings great insight into the persistent conflict in the Middle East. The book serves to make the readers understand the emotional, historical and political dynamics around the primary causes of the political and territorial dispute in the region. The Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948 is highly recommended for everyone, who would be interested in becoming familiar with the anti-Zionist Jewish perspective of the subject at stake. In order to have a fair and judgmental approach vis-à-vis the conflict, the book should be accompanied with other scholarly studies which would bring into play further factual analyses as well as political and biographical interpretations of the narrative.