This photograph was taken in March 2007 at a center in a refugee camp in Lebanon, at an event to mark Land Day. It was taken by our friend Thierry Bresillon from France. The photograph shows a sign posted by Zochrot at a visit to the destroyed village Um a-Zinat, near Yokne'am.

In Israel, the importance of this sign in Hebrew is that it brings the Nakba, the unmarked destroyed village, into the Hebrew language. In Lebanon, in the refugee camp, the sign with the name of the destroyed village in Hebrew makes present the language of the colonizer. The Hebrew is dissonant here -- twice. The first time when it populated unfamiliar dialects; the second time as it pushes its way into a place where it does not belong. In this dissonance lies the potential for creating a new "colonizers' language," a language that includes the refugees of the land instead of excluding them.

Umm a-Zinnat March of Return 2003 (6)