What's in a Name: Stories behind Arabic-Palestinian Place-Names in Israel

One spring day in the 1980s, my family and I woke up to the sight of bulldozers, accompanied by Israeli policemen, ascending the hill called Jabal Sīkh in Kafr Kannā. At the time, I was a pupil in elementary school, and the hill could be seen clearly from the school. My teacher explained to the class that the Jewish National Fund workers were leveling the hill and planting pine and cypress trees that would provide shade for us in the play areas that would be erected between the trees. Years...