Reply #10: Tree surgeons at work [View All]

[Paschall]

By Uzi Benziman

Permit me to introduce the reader to a new term, recently spun by the word Laundromat that cleanses Israeli actions in the territories: gidum - a Hebrew word that can mean cutting or amputation. It is now being used to describe the action perpetrated against the olive trees in the Samarian village of Ein Abus.

The gidum caused a commotion last week that hit 5.0 on the (Avi) Dichter scale, and prompted the prime minister to instruct the director of Shin Bet and the Israel Police to investigate what really happened in the affair.

Chief Inspector Doron Ben-Abu, spokesman for the Judea and Samaria police district, made freewheeling use of the novel term in his attempt to explain what happened to the olive grove - owned by Fawzi Hussein - that was the focus of media reports. While during the previous week the Israeli press (including this reporter) described the indecent act committed against the trees as "uprooting," this week agitated news reports were circulated on Web sites identified with the right, which described the action as merely "pruning"; in other words, limited, thoughtful cutting back of the tree for the purposes of botanic health and recovery.

Chief Inspector Ben-Abu found the need to employ the term "gidum" - in other words, something between uprooting and pruning. In pure linguistic terms, "gidum" is a situation from which there is no way back. There is no such thing as a truncated tree trunk that rehabilitates or reconstitutes itself. (more)

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/360681.html