Palestinian Village Research Articles

The practice and theory of British counterinsurgency: the histories of the atrocities at the Palestinian villages of al-Bassa and Halhul, 1938–1939

This article details two largely unreported atrocities by British forces operating against Arab rebels during the Arab revolt, 1936–9, at the Palestinian villages of al-Bassa and Halhul. It then examines the military-legal system that underpinned and authorised British military forces operating in aid of the civil power, suggesting that the law in place at the time allowed for a level of reprisals and punitive actions, such as happened at al-Bassa and Halhul. The article does not conclude that the law allowed for atrocities but it does argue that it gave a basic form and understanding to an operational method that was brutal and could lead to atrocities. It thus tests the idea in much of the literature on counterinsurgency that the British were restrained and used minimum force when compared to other colonial and neo-colonial powers fighting insurgents.

Presence and Absence in ‘Abandoned’ Palestinian Villages

This essay deals with the way Palestinian villages, emptied during the 1948 war when their inhabitants fled or were expelled, were visually preserved in Israeli consciousness. The essay analyses a group of photographs in official Israeli archives that were taken by Israeli photographers between 1948 and 1951. These images, taken for Israeli national propaganda to describe the new Jewish immigrants who had been settled by the new Israeli state in these villages, show how they implement the Zionist world view. In contrast to these purposes, however, reading these institutional photography archives also makes it possible to learn about Palestinian identity before 1948 and gain insight into the Palestinian people, who are missing from these photographs. The essay shows how the manner of reading these archives makes possible the extraction of different layers of meanings.

The 'Demographic Rogue' and Borders in the Land of Israel

Derrida's rogue model explains how the 'other' is characterized to form a threat on the existence of the 'self'. Demography plays a critical role in international conflicts, by creating these feelings of threat. As early as the 1930's, the demographic factor has become a central component in determining the borderline between national movements in Palestine, under the British mandate governments. The following research shows how the feelings of threat increased since Israel broke through the armistice lines and occupied Palestinian populated territories in June 1967. A rapid demographic growth of Palestinian population, the outburst of Palestinian rebellion against Israeli rule, and settlement of hundreds thousands of Jewish people amongst Palestinian villages and towns in the occupied territories, increased controversy within Israeli society, regarding the issue of separating the populations and the need to determine a clear closed border between them. The call of Arab leaders, citizens of Israel, to change the state's Zionist character, even further increased the trend of forming a demographic discourse which calls for separation

Water quality and improving hygienic practices of the rural community in the vicinity of Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine

The study aims to increase community awareness at the household level about certain hygienic practices and water quality in order to develop an effective program that will target improving specific hygiene-related behavior. The study was carried out in two Palestinian villages and applies a quasi-experimental design where chemical and biological water quality analysis as well as residential behavioral aspects related to some hygiene practices were assessed before and after envisaged intervention applications. A questionnaire was used to evaluate the housewives' knowledge, and practices in regard to hygienic practices and water use, followed by face-to-face health education and awareness sessions to the selected housewives. After 3 months, another assessment was conducted using the same questionnaire to measure improvement in their knowledge and practices. On the first visit, in addition to collecting data related to the questionnaire, the water quality in the selected houses was tested to ensure the quality aspects of the hygiene practices. Based on these findings, the chosen methodology was able to promote a real change in improving the water quality on household taps and in improving hygienic practices and knowledge.

“We are all Israelis”: The Politics of Colonial Comparisons

Drawing on the work of Benedict Anderson and Edward Said, this essay analyzes the ubiquity of comparisons in American Orientalist culture. As the United States gained territory through settler colonial expansion, it often rendered its acquisition meaningful through comparisons to Levantine culture. Hence, in his 1848 account of the U.S. naval expedition of the Red Sea and Jordan, William Lynch compared Arabs to Indians and the Holy Land to the U.S. Southwest. During the Gilded Age, Mark Twain compared Palestinian villages to western U.S. mining camps. In the 1940s, World War II war correspondents compared the Moroccan Sahara to El Paso and New Mexican pueblos. Yet, comparisons are also the rubric of critical colonial studies that unmask forms of exceptionalism and colonial rule. The comparative maneuvers that constitute American Orientalism unwittingly invite comparisons of colonial power. I therefore read critically against American Orientalism by focusing on a comparative analysis of the U.S.-Mexico and Israeli “security walls,” as well as Palestinian and Louisianan refugees. This enables one to reveal the haunting specter, to cite Anderson, of comparative work.

Cautious Commemoration: Localism, Communalism, and Nationalism in Palestinian Memorial Monuments in Israel

In March 1998, the political leadership of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel was looking for ways to commemorate al-Nakba (“The Disaster,” in Arabic), referring to the war of 1948, during which about 700,000 Palestinians were uprooted and hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed. This leadership, organized in the Follow-Up Committee (FUC), nominated a Nakba and Steadfastness Committee (NSC) chaired by the author Muhamad Ali Taha. Among the Committee's several initiatives, one gained front-page headlines in the Arabic media: a call for Arab municipalities to establish memorial monuments for the Palestinian martyrs (shuhada) of 1948.

Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the claims of memory

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsNote on TransliterationsIntroduction: The Claims of Memory, by Lila Abu-Lughod and Ahmad H. Sa'diPart I. Places of Memory1. The Rape of Qula, a Destroyed Palestinian Village, by Susan Slyomovics2. Mapping the Past, Re-creating the Homeland: Memories of Village Places in pre-1948 Palestine, by Rochelle Davis3. Return to Half-Ruins: Memory, Postmemory, and Living History in Palestine, by Lila Abu-LughodPart II. Modes of Memory4. Iterability, Cumulativity, and Presence: The Relations Figures of Palestinian Memory, by Lena Jayyusi5. Women's Nakba Stories: Between Being and Knowing, by Rosemary Sayigh6. The Continuity of Trauma and Struggle: Recent Cinematic Representations of the Nakba, by Haim BresheethPart III. Faultlines of Memory7. The Secret Visitations of Memory, by Omar Al-Qattan8. Gender of Nakba Memory, by Isabelle Humphries and Laleh Khalili9. Memories of Conquest: Witnessing Death in Tantura, by Samera Esmeri10. The Politics of Witness: Remembering and Forgetting 1948 in Shatila Camp, by Diana K. AllanAfterword. Reflections on Representations, History, and Moral Accountability, by Ahmad H. Sa'diBibliographyContributorsIndex

The Effect of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict on the Water Resources of the Jordan River Basin

Abstract The article analyses the interaction between security and environment in the Mediterranean, focusing on the paradigmatic example of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over water resources in the Jordan River basin. Control of water can hardly be considered the main cause of conflict between Israel and Palestine, but it certainly has increased the potential for conflict and had a long-term negative effect on the environment. The article starts with an historical reconstruction of the main attempts to reach a cooperative solution to water management in the Jordan River basin. These attempts failed as a consequence of the emergence of a zero-sum game between the co-riparian countries of the basin. The lack of cooperation has had a heavy impact on water quantity and quality. Two third of the deep wells in the centre of Israel are polluted, partly due to the infiltration of untreated wastewater from West Bank sites. The level of the coastal aquifer has fallen and sea water has penetrated it. As a consequence, much of the population of the Gaza Strip now has access only to brackish water that does not meet the WHO standard for drinking water. The 1995 Oslo Interim Agreement recognised the water rights of Palestinians and the need to share water resources. Its aftermath witnessed new cooperative efforts involving offi cials, experts and people of both sides. The so-called “Second Intifada”, however, blocked cooperation in many sectors and provoked large-scale damage to the water infrastructure. The violent outbreaks of October 2000 had a serious impact on the wells, the water infrastructure and the wastewater disposal system. Reportedly, the Israeli deliberately filled up wells in Gaza as retaliation against the Palestinian attack on Israeli settlements, did not allow the Palestinians to buy spare parts for pumps, and kept water tankers from reaching the Palestinian villages. The Israeli authorities did not directly plan these acts of vandalism - they are mainly the consequences of an escalation of violence among the settlers - but were responsible for not taking action to prevent them and forbidding the use water as a weapon against Palestinians. The separation barrier Israeli has been building since 2002 does not follow the Green Line, but creates a de facto annexation of 16% of the West Bank. The wall keeps people on either side of the Wall separated from their land, water resources and socialties.

On Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness

On Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness Rachel Tzvia Back (bio) Abstract In this letter to Bridges, the author summarizes her experiences at a conference in Capetown South Africa on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The conference focused on trans generational transmission of trauma and included presentations by apartheid era survivors and perpetrators as well as second-generation Holocaust survivors and perpetrators and by Eva Moses Korr, a survivor of Mengele's experiments on twins. Dear Editors: I've just returned to Israel from a conference on "Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness: Reflecting on Ten Years of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission" [in Capetown, South Africa, November 2006] to find your call for submissions on reconciliation and alternatives to war. How wonderful that you are devoting an issue to this theme; so much at the Capetown conference spoke exactly to that. Sadly, I don't think I'll have time to fully write of my experiences before your deadline (I came home [End Page 6] to family illnesses demanding my time and energy), so I'll just note a few names and ideas that stood out. In addition to South Africa's story (I saw video footage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the first time and kept wondering why I hadn't seen any earlier), the stories of second-generation Holocaust survivors and perpetrators were most profoundly present. Indeed, the focus on the trans-generational transmission of trauma was intense, disturbing and (of course) appropriate. Our stories have become our children's stories—our pain and prejudices have become (or will become) theirs, and I wondered throughout the four-day conference about the generations of healing necessary after each war and every horror. I gave a paper on a local initiative—Galilean Jews and Palestinians meeting to share their narratives. What bonds us in this group, its raison d'etre, is that the Jews (myself among them) live on land where a Palestinian village stood until 1948. (The people of Mi'ar, the village in question, were evacuated from their homes during the fighting of Israel's War of Independence and were never allowed to return. The village was eventually destroyed.) The Arabs of our group are all descendents of that village, and they still view Mi'ar as home. It is, as you can imagine, a powerful and emotionally charged story. As far as we know, this type of encounter between Arabs dispossessed of their land and Jews now living on that land has never before taken place. But there is hope, a hope embedded in the ability to acknowledge wrongdoings, the ability and desire to feel each other's pain, losses and fears. The initiative is small and local, but significant nonetheless, and one looks for hope where one can… (The story of Palestinians on the Israeli side of the Green Line is little known and often confused with that of Palestinians in the territories occupied by Israel after the 1967 war. They are not the same story.) The closing plenary of the conference was delivered by Eva Moses Kor, one of the twins experimented on by Mengele. She is the subject of a new documentary, Forgiving Dr. Mengele—we viewed a brief extract of the film, which was moving and deeply provocative. A small woman, her speech still marked by her Eastern-European origins, Moses Kor spoke about the decision to forgive Mengele as a turning point in her life, as an empowering and liberating moment. What also impressed me about her was that with all she had seen and also endured, she spoke with a gentle and embracing humor. Another very interesting presentation was delivered by Ilona Kuphal, who is part of a group called One by One—they promote dialogue between descendents of Holocaust survivors and descendents of Nazi perpetrators. Similar efforts to build bridges between erstwhile enemies, and between victims and perpetrators, have become the life-work of a white South African woman, Ginn Fourie. Fourie, whose teenage daughter was killed in an ANC attack on a pub, spoke of her decision to seek out the man who ordered the attack and, together with him, found a center working toward reconciliation on both...

The Silenced Outcry: A Feminist Perspective from the Israeli Checkpoints in Palestine

This paper discusses activities of Machsom Watch, a human rights organization of Israeli women who visit checkpoints in occupied West Bank daily to monitor army's operation of checkpoints and intervene when possible. The paper examines presence of Israeli women at checkpoints vis-a-vis both Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians, and it explores some gendered aspects of occupation, as manifested in checkpoints and in activities of Machsom Watch. The soldier barked at my mother give me your ID, and I saw her search- ing for it in her handbag. Then he grimaced and exclaimed half-jokingly, you are detained. The place was a checkpoint known as the container at end of Sawahra, a Palestinian village east of Jerusalem. This particu- lar checkpoint controls all movement of Palestinians from southern Bantustans of Bethlehem and Hebron to east (Jericho and Jordan) and northern Bantustans of Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin. The time was shortly after assassination of Hamas leader sheikh Ahmed Yassin (March 2004), so out of fear of revenge, Israel put entire West Bank under a five-week closure until after Israel's independence day. Closure means movement is severely restricted, so there was very little traffic at checkpoint that day, and bored soldiers were having fun with us. There was nothing exceptional about this scene - which thousands of Palestinians experience daily - except for fact that we are not Palestin- ians but Israeli women. My mother belongs to an organization of Israeli women called Machsom Watch,1 an organization of women who go to checkpoints primarily to witness, document, and report what hap- pens there, but also to try and help ease passage for Palestinians. The checkpoints represent most immediate contact Palestinians have with Israeli soldiers, and as all Palestinian movement is restricted by Israeli army, they represent daily and often humiliating friction between Palestinian population and Israeli occupation machine. Members of Machsom Watch (MW) hold different political positions, but they all oppose Israeli occupation and see situation at checkpoints as a violation of basic human rights, and more pragmati- cally, as an incitement to hate on behalf of a collectively punished Pal- estinian population. MW started operating in Jerusalem in winter of

When the Underdog Schema Dominates the We-ness Schema: The Case of Radical Leftist Jewish-Israelis

When the Underdog Schema Dominates the We-ness Schema: The Case of Radical Leftist Jewish-IsraelisAner GovrinAner GovrinSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:December 2006https://doi.org/10.1521/prev.2006.93.4.623PDFPDF PLUS ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations About Previous article Next article FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Cited byCited by1. “Forget the Palestinians, You are Our Mother”: Why Therapists Should not be Dead Right with Their PatientsOnline publication date: Go to citation Crossref Google ScholarCatherine B. Silver2. Traumatic Memories and the Need to Punish: The Boycott of Israeli AcademicsOnline publication date: 13 June 2008. Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar Volume 93Issue 4Aug 2006 Information© N.P.A.P.PDF download

The Wall and the Law: A Tale of Two Judgements

Israel's construction of a 670 kilometre wall and barrier through the West Bank and East Jerusalem has generated international political controversy, and two significant judicial rulings. In July 2004, the International Court of Justice issued its Advisory Opinion to the United Nations General Assembly, stating that the Separation Wall violated international human rights and humanitarian law, and proposing that Israel immediately dismantle it, with reparations to its victims. The week before, the Israeli Supreme Court released its decision in Beit Sourik Village Council vs Israel, finding that the Wall complied in principle with legal norms, but portions of it must be re-located to reduce avoidable harm to Palestinian villages. This article critically assesses the two decisions against the requirements of international law. It also tracks the response of the international community to Israel's continued construction of the Wall in the aftermath of these two judicial rulings.

The Buried History of Palestine

The Buried History of Palestine Terry M. Rempel Salman H. Abu-Sitta, Atlas of Palestine 1948 (London: Palestine Land Society, 2004), Pp. 428. In July 1949 Israel told the United Nations in response to questions about the future of Palestinian refugees that 'the clock cannot be put back'. This phrase has become the mainstay of Israel's arguments against the return of the refugees to their homes, properties and lands. It has also become part of conventional international wisdom about a solution to one of the most protracted refugee cases in the world today. This stands in contrast to ongoing efforts to strengthen international law and practice vis-à-vis the right of refugees worldwide to return and to restitution, including the recently adopted UN Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons. The irony of this situation is either ignored or overlooked in the Palestinian [End Page 229] case. Many legal precedents for restitution are rooted in the tireless efforts of holocaust survivors and others in the wider Jewish diaspora who sought legal remedies for the terrible wrongs inflicted on their community in the 20th century. The new Atlas of Palestine 1948 might easily be dismissed by some as an attempt to turn back the clock. The massive Atlas certainly provides the reader with an education about the history of Palestine. It goes into detail about the borders of the country, the location of villages, holy sites, wells, public infrastructure, land usage and the mass displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian Arab people in 1948. Section one of part I of the Atlas provides an historical overview (9 maps) from the period of the British mandate beginning in 1922 and the development of the borders of historic Palestine through the 1947 United Nations plan to partition the country into two states. Section two (19 maps) describes population and land ownership up to the eve of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Section two includes three unique contributions: a detailed comparison and discussion of various sources documenting Jewish land ownership in Palestine during the first half of the 20th century; a description of land ownership in the Naqab (Negev) which comprised nearly half of the total land area of pre-1948 Palestine and where, unlike central and northern Palestine, ownership and user rights were governed by tradition and customs of local Bedouin tribes; and detailed lists of infrastructure, public amenities and religious sites. The third section of the Atlas (32 maps) covers the period known to Palestinians as the Nakba or catastrophe when an estimated 750–900,000 Palestinian Arabs were forcibly displaced from their cities, villages and homes following the 1947 UN partition plan and during the first Arab-Israeli war which ended with the signing of Armistice agreements between Israel and neighbouring Arab states in 1949. A series of maps describes the various stages of displacement and dispossession. Another series maps those villages divided by the 1949 armistice line with Jordan. The Atlas also includes maps on the location of remaining Palestinian villages inside Israel today. The second part of the Atlas includes more than 250 pages covering 15,000 sq. km of Palestine digitised from 1:20,000 sheets of the Survey of Palestine and a smaller number of 1:100,000 sheets from the same source. The remarkable aspect of part II of the Atlas is the merging of the above-mentioned sheets with Royal Air Force aerial photographs of the country from 1945 and 1946. The combined sheets/aerial photographs cover an area of 7,661 sq. km, including 610 Palestinian towns and villages (54 percent) and 128 Jewish towns and colonies (70 percent). Landmarks covered include village sites, Zionist colonies within Arab villages, police stations, police posts, police offices, post offices, railway stations, camps, airports, landing grounds, schools, mosques, sheikh/tombs, cemeteries, churches/chapels, convents/monasteries/orphanages, synagogues, wells, cisterns, springs, water tanks, watch towers, and ruins. Other features include the international boundaries, armistice lines, the partition plan, sub-district boundaries, village boundaries, tribal boundaries (approx.), built-up areas (within and without photo coverage), urban limits, demilitarised zones, mountain regions, plain regions, sand dunes, lakes/sea, aqueducts, cliff edges, railways, dismantled...

Language, migration, and urbanization: the case of Bethlehem

The town of Bethlehem provides a unique case for testing the relations between language, migration, and urbanization. This article explores one aspect of the complex Bethlehemite case. We intend to reveal how urbanization and migration are reflected in the sociolinguistic changes of the Arabic spoken in the town. Whereas most residents formerly used a variety of Arabic similar to that spoken in Palestinian villages, emerging social identity issues seem to have produced new distinctions. Younger women and some Christian men are tending to adopt an urban pronunciation like that of nearby East Jerusalem, at the same time as the speech of younger educated Muslims is showing the growing influence of the standard variety of Arabic. By relating the use of linguistic variants to changes in identity, this study shows that Bethlehem is a town in transition, being transformed from its previous status as a Christian Arab town into an important Palestinian and dominantly Muslim city.

“MIDDLE-GROUND” POLITICS AND THE RE-PALESTINIZATION OF PLACES IN ISRAEL

This article aims to explore the development of what we define as “middle-ground” politics among the Palestinians in Israel. By middle ground, we mean the linkage between Palestine as an abstract notion and the concrete daily concerns of the Palestinians. The activities at demolished Palestinian villages and towns are one of the most salient manifestations of this middle ground. We argue that these activities create a new sense of group identity for many Palestinians and can be termed a re-Palestinization of places in Israel.

Belonging, memory and the politics of planning in Israel

This paper focuses on contradictory expressions of memory and belonging of Jews and Palestinians in Israel. It examines the conflicts over planning procedures, which engage such contradictory memories, and belonging at the national and local scales of planning. It explores how the dynamics of power relations can operate differently at each level and can result in planning resolutions, which link in different ways to the constructions of memory and belonging of Jews and Palestinians. The paper begins with an overview of the expressions of belonging and commemoration at the national scale of planning; in the agenda of the Council for the Restoration and Preservation of Historic Sites (CRPHS) in Israel and the rhetoric of the government National Master Plan of Israel (TAMA/35). It challenges this rhetoric in two local planning events: ‘the road and the graveyard’ and the ‘new Jewish neighbourhood and the old Palestinian village’.

Bait 'Ur al-Fauqa: a Medieval and Ottoman Village on the Ancient Road between Jerusalem and the Coastal Plain

The village of Bait 'Ur al-Fauqa ('the Upper', as distinct from the adjacent village of Bait 'Ur al-Tahta, 'the Lower') has a long history of settlement, ranging from the Bronze Age until modern times. This report describes the results of an architectural survey of historic buildings in the village, carried out during the month of September in 1998 and 1999. Four buildings were surveyed. They are described here individually, and their role in the development of the village in medieval and Ottoman periods is discussed. They include two twelfth century Frankish structures, a hall-tower and a large vaulted range, representing the centre of an agricultural estate. The other two structures, an old mosque and a guesthouse, are examples of traditional Palestinian village architecture.

The prevalence of psychological morbidity in West Bank Palestinian children.

To determine the prevalence of psychological morbidity among Palestinian children living in the southern Bethlehem District of the West Bank during July 2000. We undertook a descriptive study using the Rutter A2 (parent) Scale to determine psychological morbidity. This questionnaire comprises 31 questions that were answered by a parent of the 206 subject children (ages 6 to 13 years). We selected subjects based on a multistage, randomized selection of 8 Palestinian villages and their households in the southern region of Bethlehem, West Bank. We used the Gaza Socioeconomic Adversities Questionnaire to determine differences in economic status among families. For all families interviewed, the father was employed, none were receiving financial assistance, and all but 1 owned their own house. The results of the Rutter A2 Scale revealed a rate of psychological morbidity ("caseness") of 42.3% among Palestinian children. The rate for boys was 46.3% and for girls, 37.8%. The prevalence of psychological morbidity among Palestinian children in the West Bank was significantly higher (factor of 2; chi2 = 23.26, df 1, P < 0.001), relative to the level of psychological morbidity determined independently for children in Gaza during 2000. We predict that these rates will have increased substantially owing to the escalated violence that began in this region 2 months after we conducted our study. We further predict that children in Israeli settlements in the West Bank will also exhibit elevated levels of psychological morbidity, relative to their counterparts in Israel.

Diary of an Invasion: Ramallah, April 2002

As dawn broke on March 29, 2002, Israeli tanks, under cover of helicopter gunships, and accompanied by armoured personnel carriers, rolled into Ramallah. Hundreds of soldiers made house-to-house searches, destroyed offices, besieged hospitals, arrested ambulance drivers and medics and prevented wounded civilians from reaching hospital. Hundreds of Palestinian males over the age of fourteen were detained and brutally treated, some died resisting along with other innocent civilians. Operation ‘Defensive Shield’, long planned, and with the aim of destroying the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), had found its opportunity with the suicide bombings of the week before—months of ‘closure’ of Palestinian towns and villages by the Israelis before that had brought the Palestinians to a state of increasing impoverishment and despair.

Resisting Oblivion: Historiography of the Destroyed Palestinian Village of Lubya

The following article “Resisting Oblivion” is part of a long research on a Palestinian demolished village, Lubya, and its historiography before and after its demolition in 1948. This article is part of a forthcoming book, due to be published in both Danish and English in Denmark this year. The article is based mainly on the oral accounts of the elderly generation from the village – 700 people were interviewed – and archival documents, pieced together to produce this microcosmic piece of modern Palestinian historiography, and to show the power of past memory acounts in shaping the lives of people, even after fifty-four years in exile.