Translation from Hebrew to Arabic a necessity

Occupied Jerusalem: Translations from Hebrew to Arabic and vice versa, especially of literature, is not a process of normalisation but a necessity, or so feel some Palestinian translators.

"Translation comes as a result of knowing the enemy especially [when] there is no difference between arts and politics," said Dr Mufid Qasum, general manager of the Palestinian Centre of Israeli Studies (MADAR) in Ramallah.

Dr Qasum defended the necessity of translating from Hebrew to Arabic, especially literary translations, as it is important in understanding the other side; this is not considered normalisation.

"We must first understand the definition of normalisation before firing out terminology like this. We all should treat Israel as a human entity and not as an extraordinary entity. Hezbollah was able to defeat Israel through its knowledge of Israeli society with all its contradictions and positives. Is that normalisation?" Dr Qasum asked during an interview with Gulf News.

"Translation is first a humanitarian task and then an ethical and national one. We all have to be in the picture that Israel is going through a factional revolution, it's not the Israel that we knew from before; it has now become a state that leads globalisation and this affects it greatly from the inside," said Dr Qasum.

He admitted that the trend for translation is yet to take off in the Palestinian territories and in Israel as most translations are for political books.

Moreover, the number of translated literary books is small due to the lack of financial resources and professional translators.

MADAR is currently training 10 to 15 professional translators. A well-known translator from MADAR is Sa'id Ayyash.

Ayyash has spent more than 20 years translating work from Arabic to Hebrew.

"Translation is a human activity that cannot be confined to a particular theory. Translation is creativity and it is to rebuild the translated text in a creative way," he told Gulf News.

He said translating from Hebrew to Arabic was now a necessity for Palestinians in particular and for the Arab world in general so that a real picture could be formed about Israeli society that does not live on politics alone.

Times of struggle

Dr Johnny Mansour, a researcher and historian who is one of the significant Hebrew to Arabic translators agreed.

"In times of struggle, it is necessary to adopt a translation project that combines both a correct substantive translation and a correct intellectual identity for the translator and its nation who will read the translated material," he said.

According to a study conducted by the BDI Institution, which specialises in distributing books, the number of books sold annually in Israel is more than 35 million and the majority of the translations are from world literature. Translations from Arabic do not exceed 10,000 copies of successful literary books.

On the other hand, translation from Arabic to Hebrew is increasing especially after some well-known publishing houses translated books of famous Arabs. In addition, one publishing house specialises in translating from Arabic to Hebrew.

The house is called Al Andalus House and is founded by Ya'il, a Leftist activist who is proficient in Arabic.

After working for more than five years as administrator at the former Knesset member Dr Azmi Bisharah's office, Ya'il established her own publishing house.

"I'm, in general, against normalisation. The question remains: what is normalisation? It means to create something normal from an abnormal picture or condition.

"The occupation as well as racial discrimination is abnormal and we should not act upon them as something normal.

"This leads us to ask the same question about cultural relationships. Is that possible? In my opinion, it's not. There is no need to build normal cultural relationships. Moreover, the relationships with the Israeli state and the Israeli publishers should not be normal. Despite that, I believe that translating Arab literature to Hebrew is a necessity and there should be a way to achieve that," Ya'il said.