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- Yosef Bar'el, Director-General of the Israel Broadcasting
Authority, has instructed his workers not to use the word "mitnachel"
- settler - when referring on their broadcasts to residents of Judea, Samaria,
and Gaza. Environment Minister Tzachi HaNegbi was the one to raise the
issue with Bar'el, in light of the negative connotations the word has taken
on. Linguist Dr. Yitzchak Shashar of Ofrah told Arutz-7 today, "Actually,
I like the word Mitnachel, as it's based on a commandment in the Torah:
'V'hitnachaltem... You shall divide the Land for an inheritance by lot
among your families' (Num. 33, 54)." He said that in the 1950's, when
he lived in Tirat Tzvi, "I was also called a settler - such that there
is clearly no difference between pre-1967 and post-1967 areas... Nor should
there be a difference between the 'residents' of Tel Aviv and the 'settlers'
of Yesha..."
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- Dr. Sheshar said that he is not sure he would have made
the same decision as Bar'el: "On the one hand, the term has definitely
taken on a negative connotation in some parts of the public, but on the
other hand, it has the above positive qualities & I sometimes use
the term 'liberated territories,' or Yesha [the Hebrew acronym for Judea,
Samaria, and Gaza - Yehuda, Shomron, and Aza] - I like that term very much,
because it has the added connotation of Yeshuah, salvation. I would also
be pleased if the media would specify the exact area: Ofrah in the Binyamin
Region, Kedumim in Shomron, etc., just as they say Sdeh Boker in the Negev."
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