Notes and Sources

SOURCES

Several of the captions herein incorporate material that also appears in Eyal Weizman’s essay, in the accompanying volume, The Conflict Shoreline. The captions are based upon extensive research conducted with the help of aerial expert Eli Atzmon and another expert who offered his time generously, but who requested to remain anonymous. During the course of site visits individual testimonies were recorded and specific landmarks corroborated and identified. Additional information has been drawn from a variety of sources, in particular from the Arab Association for Human Rights, Adalah, Bimkom Planners for Planning Rights, Negev Coexistence Forum (Dukium), Palestine Remembered, and Zochrot.

The land of the Negev has been the subject of intense emotions and speculation, and this has engendered passionate views about what transpires in this space. I endeavored to maintain a clinical approach in detailing what is seen in this and the other volumes of The Erasure Trilogy; one that is receptive to the clues of the experts whom I consulted, and that was developed over the course of many months flying above and reading the land. If there have been errors in interpretation, I hope the reader will allow that they have not been intentional. Despite this, I remain solely responsible for that which is contained within these pages. It is my hope that they will be an invitation to consider how we interact with one another, and with the land that sustains us.

NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION

The transliteration system used in Desert Bloom gives preference to the phonetic pronunciation of words, and favors common parlance over historical or literary usage (for example: Bisān and not Baysān), so as to better indicate the essence of the language as it is used today. The system does not distinguish between letters that have similar pronunciation as far as the foreign speaker is concerned (for example the letter S stands for both س and ص). As the Bedouins of the Negev pronounce the letter ق as G, the letter G has been used in relation to places that are strictly Bedouin to represent the letter ق. When an official spelling of the name of a person, place, or institution contradicts this system, deference has been made to that which is in common usage, and therefore most accessible.

Consonants

H	T	Ḥ	GH	KH	Q	TZ	S	DH	‛	ʼ	SH
ه	ט ת	ح	غ	خ	ق	—	ص س	ذ	ع	ؤ ئ إ أ	ش
ה	ط ت	ח	—	כ	ק	צ	שׂ ס	—	ע	א	ש

Naqab Bedouin pronunciation

Vowels

A	Ī	Ū	Ā	Ē	Ō
ة ى ا	ي	و	ا	colloquial (يX)	colloquial (وX)
ה	י	וּ	—	—	וֹ