Posted on by Jenny White

An Israeli colleague here pointed out to me that the term Ottoman is rarely used on Israeli public monuments, even though other empires are named (Mamluks, Ummayads, etc…). I noticed this myself at a small museum in Ramle where at least the English language signs referred to what was clearly the Ottoman period as “the Islamic period”. My colleague says this is because mentioning the “Ottoman Empire” would make it difficult to keep up the narrative that there was no one in the region when Israel was founded. (An anthropologist once pointed out to me that when Israelis said the land was “empty” and not owned by anyone, they were often referring to grazing land that was used seasonally and owned communally in terms of usufruct rights.) The Israeli colleague also noted that admitting to the existence of an Ottoman Empire on this territory would validate the Ottoman documents (eg land deeds) that Palestinians and others have. Note the language on this Beer Sheva monument.

There’s also a bust of Ataturk at this site and two flagpoles flying the Israeli and Turkish flags. The Turkish flag kept disappearing and people thought it was because relations between Turkey and Israel had soured (there was some graffiti defacing the monument after the Mavi Marmara incident). But it turns out that there were some Turks living in the building behind the monument and whenever there was a soccer game, they’d swipe the Turkish flag from the pole and use it to wave around their living room during the game.

Tags: Foreign Relations, Uncategorized // 7 Comments »