ABSTRACT
Following Victor Klemperer, I define the Lingua Orientalis Hierosolimitanae – the language of the United Lands of East Jerusalem (LOH). It is a recent Hebrew dialect, spoken by occupiers and occupied alike. The LCO dominates the discourse of the IAA management and is inspired by military slang. Criticism is like enemy fire, and in response to it we perform a ‘real and focused’ (memukedet) examination – from ‘sikul memukad’ (‘focused prevention [of terror]’, that is, targeted killing). The word ‘focused’ comes to keep the civilians, which sometimes pay the price, out of focus. The LOH is a poor dialect, hardly anything is original. With little to say, one fills the space with clichés. Capitalism rules, and projects, entrepreneurs and development are idolized. We always keep our noble ‘principles,’ consider ‘all the considerations’ and are ‘objective’ and ‘professional.’ The empty talk about ‘professionalism’ masks the lack of professionalism of people like the then IAA Director, who had no education in archaeology and related fields. The LOH corrupts the language and the mind. It does not reject truth, it pays no attention to truth: ‘The issue … is a professional and not a principal question, therefore, the decisions shall be accepted by the entrepreneur and the IAA Director [two famous experts], after holding a principal discussion of the issue’ (Document 5.5, emphases added). If such a discussion ever took place, it was neither professional nor principal).
