Talk:List of villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict

How many villages?

"Arab villages

Four Arab villages located in the Latrun Corridor were destroyed based on the orders of Yitzhak Rabin due to the corridor's strategic location and route to Jerusalem and because of the residents' alleged aiding of Egyptian commandos in their attack on the city of Lod. The residents of the three villages were offered compensation but were not allowed to return.[3]"

There is confusion here over how many Arab villages Rabin ordered to be destroyed and how many had residents who were offered compensatiion. It looks to me as if the 4th has been added in but may not have been part of Rabin's order to demolish etc. Can anyone clear this up. As it is it reads inconsistently. Sam 01:54, 2 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Samscribe (talk • contribs)

I think it would be useful if someone just added a sentence where the (approximate) number of Jewish and Palestinian villages detroyed is mentioned. Like introducing the article by "Below is a list of the xxx Jewish and xxx Arab villages depopulated and/or destroyed during the Arab-Israeli conflict,..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.247.85.103 (talk) 17:20, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to, but the numbers are disputed. And there are a lot of entries here that should not be here. (I just removed one actually) In any case, the article needs massive cleanup. Care to help? :) Tiamut^talk 17:57, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Previous discussions

I'm not sure we really need a separate page on every 300-person village that was destroyed in the war. If we were going to do this for every war, Wikipedia would have literally hundreds of thousands of these pages. We could probably fill up a good 1,000 of them with just the 1915-1922 Turkey-Greece war (which had more Greek refugees than the 1948 war had Palestinian refugees), and certainly we could fill up a good 10,000 with the Hutu-Tutsi fighting in Rwanda. But none of that really seems encyclopedic. --Delirium 17:44 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

YES WE DO! --BL

Agreed. It would be quite useful to the encyclopedia. Sukiari 08:50, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Clarify? Yes, we need a list of every single village destroyed in every single war in history, or no, but we do need them for this particular war? --Delirium 20:00 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

For every war ofcourse! Btw, we would only add one extra page for each war because ideally all the villages that has been destroyed in all wars would already be in the 'pedia. Details = good, more details = more good. --BL

Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a library. There is precedent for info about individual villages, but it's right at the edge of the envelope. Otherwise what's to stop everybody in the world from adding article about each house on their street, and additional ones for each tree in the backyards? Eventually the details become so minute that no one reads the articles, in which case they're just taking up disk space and not useful. Stan 20:57 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"taking up disk space" is a specious argument at best. The storage space required to host this type of data is trivial compared to the potential benefit it could provide (I can easily imagine a scenario where a detailed record of every tree lost could be useful (e.g. environmental impact on a certain species of tree by a certain military operation)). If a person wants to create such an entry for every tree so be it, as long as the data is correct. "No data" is always less useful than "too much data." TX Ciclista (talk) 18:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Using your "thousand-person rule", it should be okay to have entries for any settlement with 1,000 people, shouldn't it? That would prevent going down to trivial things like houses and trees and so on. I think it's good to have more articles on places in countries other than the US, because those Rambot articles, useful as I think they are, do make the Wikipedia a bit lop-sided in its geographical coverage. As for places that had less than 1,000 people, well, I'm not convinced either way on that one yet... -- Oliver P. 21:22 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'd agree somewhat, though I'd prefer simpler pages without this template. If there's little information about a village, there should be a short 2-sentence article on it, not a big template with 15 squares, all of which say "NA". I'd be willing to go along with >1000. I'm fairly strongly opposed to separate pages on every village in history with 50 people, unless there's something particularly historical or noteworthy about it. There's literally millions of such villages and settlements in history. --Delirium 21:28 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You may be right. But not because of any argument to do with numbers of articles, I don't think. We're not short of space as far as I am aware. The main problem I see is that the more obscure something is, the more difficult it is to verify the information about it. But did you say that the text was identical to that on a website? If so, then don't we have a possible copyright infringement situation? If the material is copyrighted and being used without permission, then the argument is rather academic... Can you provide a link to the website in question? -- Oliver P. 21:44 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

A. Tables look nice. B. It is easier to fill a square in a table than write a sentence. C. There are lots of pages about US towns that have much less than 1000 inhabitants. D. imho, if it can be googled it should be in wikipedia. E. Someone else found it important enough to make a whole site about it www.palestineremembered.com [[1]] and Marus for a comparsion. BL

Tables may look nice, but they're a real pain to update, and they're very intimidating for those of us who aren't HTML experts. RickK 03:00 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

So, I'd have to say that the people who died in this war, and the people whose property was seized or destroyed, deserve a presence in the world that witnesses their suffering. I don't think, however, that an encyclopedia is a good place to do that. There's already a memorial Web site out there; this doesn't need to be another one. -- ESP 03:28 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Using that line of reasoning you should also oppose the September 11 Memorial Wiki then. -- 212.127.141.173 03:36 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If it were proposed to import the September 11 Memorial Wiki into Wikipedia proper, I would indeed opposte that. --Delirium 03:37 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This discussion is about villages, not people. We're getting off the subject. Do you think that some villages should be omitted from the Wikipedia, and if so, what criteria should be used to decide which ones we should have articles for? -- Oliver P. 07:36 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think if there is something to say about a village, it should get its own article. If the current contents consist of essentially a single sentence, just spread over an entire page with a table filled with "NA" entries, then I think the page should be deleted (or turned into a redirect here) and that single sentence moved to this page (as in "Blah -- formerly 5,000 inhabitants"). And I think really minor stuff (like a "village" of 10 people -- if that counted, every trailer park would be its own village) should just be omitted entirely. --Delirium 08:50 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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See also: list of places with less than ten people. We have articles on some really obscure US backwaters in Wikipedia - based on that precedent we should also have articles on really obscure Middle East backwaters too. Like Hilltop 26. Martin

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By clicking "Random Page" lots of times I estimate that about 20% of all articles (maybe 30,000 in total!) are about US towns and counties. In all those which came up in my little trial, nothing of interest ever happened there as far as the article knows. So let's not complain too much about a few hundred articles on places which suffered (for the most part) deliberate destruction. However, I'd urge BL to not get tired of the project until it is done. --Zero 14:49, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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I'm puzzled: what are these "Districts" these villages are organized under? Are they the administrative divisions of Palestine in 1948? They don't match up with the divisions used in List of cities in Israel -- llywrch 19:29, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

They are the subdistricts defined by the British administration prior to 1948. --Zero 22:51, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Then I, for one, would find it helpful if that were somehow made clear in the article. -- llywrch 01:28, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Done. I'll see what I can do about a map as well. --Zero 02:21, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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I moved this page from List of destroyed villages during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war because the new title has better grammar. --Zero 01:47, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Agree with that. A title which makes it clear that they were destroyed and/or depopulated would be even better since I'm not sure depopulation without destruction actually counts as "destroying". And not all localities were villages, some were towns and cities to like Lydda and Ramle. But another move would probably break lots of links. BL 12:10, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Actually "depopulated" is a good idea. --Zero 12:27, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

From Lists for deletion

December 5

• List of destroyed villages during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and List of villages destroyed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war(Zero created additional page with the same things) and List of localities in Palestine 1948 (also the same thing as the other two). Not of any use, especially as it is inaccurate (i.e: lists Haifa as destroyed village, is still there with a large prominent population, lists Jaffa as a destroyed village, is still there with a large prominent, majority arab city. etc.)
  • Keep of course. The person who suggested deletion is here as an Israeli propagandist and is busy destroying the middle east section of Wikipedia. Expect more phoney requests from Leumi. As for Haifa and Jaffa, they don't match the page title accurately so I removed them. Perhaps the original author of that page included them because the Arab districts of both cities were heavily damaged and/or expropriated during the war. --Zero 01:44, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • I object to the personal insult against me Zero, which had no relevance to the discussion and was against the rules. We should debate issues here, not individuals users. Furthermore, I'd like to add that those two are not the only inaccuracy. It seems that the entire list is directly copied from the website Palestine Remembered, which incidentally lists Tel Aviv and Rishon Letzyon as "Israeli colonies" (giving you an idea of the quality of the page.) Both are well inside pre-67 borders. However that isn't the matter hand. More relevantly, I noted many more instances where cities or towns still present are listed as destroyed, such as Acre, Beersheba, Safed and others. It's obvious that this page is hopelessly inaccurate, and we should scrap it. If someone wishes to create from scratch an accurate list, I'm all for it, but this is obviously not accurate, or based on facts whatsoever.Leumi 01:55, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • I didn't create a new page, I changed the page title to be more grammatical. The existence of errors is a reason for fixing them, not for listing the page for deletion. I stand by my charge that this listing is inappropriate. --Zero 02:22, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • Thankyou for pointing that out, I misunderstood that point. However the List of localities in Palestine 1948 is still redundant, and I feel the entire thing should be deleted, as it is not an accurate list at all and is based on erronous data. As you will see when you go to the page it was lifted from, the data is frequently incorrect, and as such the page should be deleted until such time as someone creates a more accurate one from scratch. The page also fails to take into account the difference between "destroyed" and "evacuated" or left, as many of the areas it features never saw Israeli troops in the area. It gives an inaccurate view of the matter, and is based to it's foundations with incorrect facts. Thus, with respect, I suggest it should be deleted. Leumi
  • Keep. BL 12:15, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • Keep one, redirect the others, then start the NPOV fight on its talk page, not here. --zandperl 03:01, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • Keep and introduce sub-headings or correct the data as required. Deletion isn't the solution for things which need improvement, improving them is. Knowing how many people were forced out or fled from where, how and why would be helpful in understanding the right of return issue and that's a significant topic in the current search for peace. If there's duplication, fix the duplication first, then get people from both disagreeing groups to come here and request the deletion, indicating mutual agreement. Jamesday 17:30, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Concerning Jewish localities: there were a few destroyed in 1948 such as the kibbutzim in the Etzion Bloc. Rather than excluding them from this page, they ought to be listed under a separate heading. --Zero 23:49, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

POV?

I would agree with the very old commentary by Zero on this page. Either somebody should add (I don't think I'm qualified to do this) the Jewish communities destroyed or change the title of the article. It does give the impression that the only villages destroyed were arabs. While they were indeed the majority, I believe it is grossly POV-ish to avoid mentioning the Jewish communities that suffered the same destiny. Imho, either we do it right or we don't at all.

I've added a Jewish villages section. Furthermore, I think a large portion of the Arab villages should be removed (some are even duplicated under different names!), but it's true that many Arab villages were destroyed and should be at least listed somewhere. -- Ynhockey || Talk 13:50, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Moved

Moved from List of villages destroyed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war to List of villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Reason is that many, if not most of these, were not actually destroyed. Fixing redirects now. -- Ynhockey || Talk 09:03, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Quality of sources

I'm concerned about the quality of sources used for this article, if it is indeed a list copied from www.palestineremembered.com, which is a propaganda website that does not meet Wikipedia's reliable sources requirements. Are there other any reliable sources for these claims? Jayjg ^(talk) 09:38, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

'Palestine Remembered' is certainly not an encyclopedic source. Morris would be much better. I'll try and compare the lists over the next couple of weeks. --Ian Pitchford 10:45, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Another convenient source is the book "All that Remains" by Khalidi, which has an article on each location. His main sources are British village statistics and Morris' first book but also on-site inspection (most locations get one or more photographs). There is also some summary material on p4-5 of Fischbach, who describes the disagreement over the number of abandoned sites (counts range from 360 to 429). The 360 figure is from the Israeli government. Some of the disagreement is due to differences in definition (what constitutes a village, what if it is only partially destroyed or depopulated, etc). This disagreement should be described in our article. Fishbach mentions a few other lists that exist. Many individual locations have their own literature but it is hard to find. --Zero 11:51, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, it really needs to be cleaned up. In addition, most of the place names linked to in this article appear to be CopyVios of that propaganda site, which is a double no-no. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

How can place names be copyvios? --Zero 21:53, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, what I mean is, if you click on the links in this article, they go to articles which appear to be copyvios of the palestineremembered site. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I see what you mean. That is indeed a problem. What I suggest is that we have separate articles only for localities which are somehow notable more than most. Rather than having dead links for the others, a better way would be to make this page into a table so that a little basic information such as population can be recorded without needing separate articles. --Zero 10:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you able to create tables like that? I haven't done it before, and don't really know how. I'd like to have a solution in place before I start blanking the CopyVio articles and eventually deleting them. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Ian and I have agreed to cooperate on preparing a draft of this page in tabular form. I guess it will take us a few weeks. After that we can conduct a massacre of those pages which only have material copied from palestineremembered. Of course we'll have to add it to some List of Massacres page ;-). --Zero 23:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

How is that work going? Jayjg ^(talk) 17:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Sources and Checking

Until now I had not looked much at Khalidi's "All that Remains" (1992). It appears to be a very meticulous piece of research. I'll briefly explain his methodology. He started with two British village lists from 1945 and investigated their (few) differences. Then he eliminated those not inside the green line. Then he eliminated those which Israeli census data showed to have not been depopulated during the 1948 or in its immediate aftermath. Depopulation had to be complete, but it was not required that the buildings be destroyed. Then every site was visited except for a few on closed military reservations. Where possible old local residents were interviewed. It was required that the locality had a separate identity (such as its own name), had a core of permanent buildings (bedouin encampments and the like were excluded even though some were quite large), and was occupied by Arabs on the eve of the 1948 war. Then he investigated all differences between his list and 6 previous lists (some shorter and some longer). There is an appendix listing all the differences. Nothing is perfect but it would hard to imagine a list more authoritative than this. Comparing his list to our page, I see about half a dozen discrepancies which I will now correct. I also looked at the changes previously made by Uriber and Ynhockey and agree with them all (but see Talk:Machsom Watch concerning Ajanjul and Bayt Nuba). --Zero 10:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

References

Entries which are red links must be supplied with at least external references, for wikipedia:Verifiability purposes. Otherwise I may add an unknown village from Iran and no one will notice. Mukadderat 16:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

All the Arab villages on the list can be easily found by going to Palestineremembered.com (a link to which is provided in the article) and selecting them. No further references to the same website are necessary for WP:V. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 16:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, the article did not say so. the article also does not say whether the Palestineremembered.com is a complete list and how wikipedia's list related to Palestineremembered.com. By the way, I opened this website, and I don't see how I can "easily" find the list of depopulated villages. I can find a particular village, if I know where to search it on the site. I added a direct link to the required page I found independently using google while I was updating Nasir al-Din disambiguation page. It is only by coincidence that it came from the same website (although I may conjecture that this village is described nowhere else).

I apologize for disagreement, but I hate lists full of red links without minimal information. This is listcruft, not encyclopedia article. If one has no time to add something meaningful, an external link will be helpful for someone else to add some content. Mukadderat 17:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, this list was not meant to have links at all (except to especially notable villages like Deir Yassin). However, a certain user (I think User:BL, who seems to be on a WikiVacation since 2004) started a bunch of village articles and said he planned to make an article for each villages and therefore added the links. If you ask me, most of the links should be removed altogether. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 17:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Link removal: a good idea, if combined with creation of the corresponding redirects. Mukadderat 19:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You may also want to look at Zero's suggestion above to convert this entire article into a table with populations, capture dates, etc. It's a great suggestion. I am not willing to undertake the task personally though. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 17:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Bil'in is in Gaza?

Robin Hood 1212 16:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Shows you something about the credibility of this article. --Gabi S. 18:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Bil'in was a village of about 200 people in the north east corner of the District of Gaza that was depopulated and destroyed in 1948. Nothing to do with the Bil'in that make the news these days. --Zero^talk 15:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I find the list rather useful, actually, it gives you a framework when names pop up. I have just created articles about 2 new villages (Bayt Naqquba and Kafr Bir'im) as quite interesting information about them popped up in the Morris and the Jiryis books (Oh, and I´m not finished adding the info yet..) Regards, Huldra 17:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Al-Hiriya

Hi all. I have been working on the Waste management section and I spend some time working at the Hiriya site outside Tel Aviv. I am reliably informed the dump gets it's name from a village "Al-Hiriya" that was located on the site to the south of Ramat Gan. Perhaps you would like to include this on your list. I am not certain which place it would fall into. --Alex 11:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Pretty sure this is Al-Khayriyya in the Jaffa district. Also spelt Al-Khayriya and Al-Kheiriya. It had a population of about 1500 and was captured by the Alexandroni Brigade in 29 April 1948. There were supposed to be a few buildings remaining in the late 1980s. --Zero^talk 13:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I have checked this with PalestineRemembered and you are correct in your assumption. I have changed the spelling of the Arab village name to take this into account. Perhaps you could add the Arabic alphabet spelling to my article for clarification- Hiriya --Alex 16:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

You saw Tarshiha, I say Tarbikha

Tarbikha is correct. It was close to the Lebanese border. --Zero^talk 10:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

al-Maliha

I have linked al-Maliha (in the Jerusalem district) to Malha ...as I believe they are the same...if I´m wrong, then please correct me. Regards, Huldra 03:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Update: according to http://www.palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/al-Maliha/index.html, then the present "Israeli settlements on town lands" are "Manachat and Israeli Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Daniya". I assume the first is indeed Manahat, but does anybody know if Ramot is "Ramat Daniya"? Regards, Huldra 09:34, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

No, Ramat Danya is nowhere near Ramot. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 10:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Do you know if there is an article about Ramat Daniya (under another name) here? Regards, Huldra 10:35, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

khalidi not a reliable source

He is not a mainstream scholar. His book claims that European Jews are Khazars, among other falsified claims.--Urthogie 17:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

You're mistaken. There's nothing in the book about Khazars and Khalidi's academic credentials are rather good by any standards, e.g., London, Oxford, Princeton, Harvard. I also have a copy of his book in front of me and the basic source used is the Palestine Index Gazetteer compiled by the Survey Directorate of the Palestine Government in 1945. It includes grid references (PGR) for every site described. --Ian Pitchford 18:16, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

• He's not a mainstream scholar when it comes to the palestinian exodus. He believes in the "master plan" theory of the exodus, which runs contrary to the mainstream one that it was a mix between choice, fear, and force, represented by Morris.
• I wish you wouldn't remove my tags, as if you're disputing that there's a dispute.--Urthogie 18:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Reliable sources indicate that Khalidi's work is not only mainstream, but definitive: Morris describes All That Remains as "...a very significant encyclopedic work... the book represents an ‎ indispensable basic research tool... a dazzling achievement..." and Ann Lesch, writing in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies describes the book as "the definitive source for research into the Palestinian displacement in 1948". --Ian Pitchford 18:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Source for Morris review? Amazon.com extracted the good parts for the book review, but I'd like to see if the full thing from Morris agrees with the figures. Update: I've searched and searched and can not verify the existence of Morris's view outside of amazon.com. All I could find were articles where morris heavily criticizes Khalidi and Khalidi defends his scholarship.--Urthogie 18:51, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

All you need do is consult Morris' own book where you'll find a map of 392 depopulated villages, with a key listing the names of all of the villages from p. xiv onwards. There's no significant disagreement between Morris and Khalidi on this issue. If you have no sources to bring to bear on this matter you should not dispute the article. --Ian Pitchford 19:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Khalidi is certainly a reliable source for the names of towns depopulated during the 1948 war. Depopulated isn't a POV claim. It doesn't attribute the depopulation to anyone, so your points on Khalidi's broader theories concerning why people left are irrelevant here. Khalidi interviewed eyewitnesses and documented the names of villages that were left with no inhabitants after the war. Those names are well known in Arab circles (your uncle, your mother, your father, your cousin can tell you) and they are not hard to write down. I don't see why you would challenge this information as disputed. (I would never, for example, claim that Elie Wiesel isn't a reliable source for the Holocaust.) While the apology you just posted on my talk page was a nice gesture, it seems that you are once again overshooting a bit to defend your POV. And this without realizing how ridiculously offensive some of your suggested "improvements" to articles can be, to those facing mass deletion, or the throwing of their work on an article into disrepute via the overzealous placement of controversy tags. Thanks. Tiamut 18:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Elie Wiesel is not a reliable source for history, Tiamut. Please turn down the psychological intensity and Wikipedia:Assume good faith.--Urthogie 18:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't use straw man arguments Urthogie. Address the points I made about Khalidi's use here please, and I'll try to keep my comments strictly limited to the article from now on. Tiamut 19:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe that if one considers his rather fringe view on the palestinian exodus, it becomes clear that he should not be used as the only source for this article.--Urthogie 19:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I must admit this list seems legit then. One thing I'd suggest be added is the population of these villages, and the date of depopulation.--Urthogie 20:00, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks. We planned to add a table giving this additional information plus Morris' depopulation code, but it's a major task. --Ian Pitchford 20:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Great. Good luck, --Urthogie 20:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Glad we are agreed on this. Btw, the section "Sources and Checking" above has a brief description of how Khalidi compiled his list. --Zero^talk 04:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

New list?

There are a number of villages that were depopulated by the Israeli authorities after November 1948. I once tried to include a couple of entries before realizing this list was restricted to the war itself. "The 1948 war was not the only cycle of ethnic cleansing, between October 1948 to November 1949, the Israeli army evacuated the villages of al-Safsaf, Iqrit, Kufr Biram, Kufr 'Anan, Khasas, Jau'neh, Qayttiyeh, al-Ghabasiyya, al-Majdal, and al-Battat and later seized all of their properties. In 1951 the Israeli army evacuated 13 villages in the triangle area and seized their properties." [2]

Should we create a new list and link it to the bottom of this article, or expand the list here by adding a sub-section and retitling? Some examples of villages that would be included are:

5 November 1948 : Aqrat
5 November 1948 : Rama
15 November 1948 : Kfar Birim
1949 : Hasas or Khasas
4 February 1949 : Anan or Kfar Anan
28 February 1949 : Kfar Yasif
5 June 1949 : Hisam, Qatiya and Jauneh (or Yanuh)
24 January 1950 : Ghabisiya
March 1950 : Batat (or Battat)
17 August 1950 : Majdal (now Majdal Askhkelon)
February 1951 : 13 Arab villages in Wadi Ara
17 November 1951 : Buwaishat or (Khirbet Buweishat)
September 1953 : Umm al-Faraj

We have to standardize and check the spelling against existing articles. The source for these listings is Sabri Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel (1968). Tiamut 09:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind including villages depopulated during the martial law period, but it should be more properly sourced than just one non-notable hardcore anti-Israel site. Has there been any major research done on the subject? -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 20:29, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

A new section in this article would look good but then the title wouldn't fit too well. I don't think we should make the title even longer though. Maybe if you start work on the list (here or in a new place as you like) then we can decide on its final location. As for research, I don't know of a systematic enumeration but many individual cases can be documented well enough. I suggest starting with Jiryis's list then we can find more sources for each locality. Some will be easy; others maybe not. I also foresee a problem about definitions as some of these were semi-permanent Bedouin communities that didn't appear on maps as villages. Finally I'll note the following footnote from a paper of Jiryis: "Among these were the villages of Batat, Amqa, Saffuriya, Majdil, Mansura, Ma'ar, Kuwelkat, Barwa, Damun, and Ruweis. For their fate and that of other Arab villages and the Jewish settlements built on their lands, see Haaretz, 28 July 1972." Maybe I can get that. --Zero^talk 01:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Three comments: (1) Umm al-Faraj is already listed, though the 1953 date suggests there is more to the story than that article indicates. (2) al-Majdal is quite well covered in Ashkelon. (3) Kfar Yasif was not permanently depopulated and still exists. --Zero^talk 01:11, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a good suggestion Zero. About Umm al-Faraj, Jiryis states on page 58 of his book that in September 1953, "the inhabitants of Umm al-Faraj (near Nahariya) were expelled from their village, which was blown up immediately afterwards." About Kfar Yasif, he says on page 57 that on "28 February 1949, 700 refugees were expelled from the village of Kfar Yasif, where they had taken refuge during the hostilities, after leaving their own villages not far away in the Galilee. Most of them were put into trucks and driven to the front lines, where they were forced to cross the frontier." If those expelled were refugees from other villages and not the inhabitants of the town themselves, that would explain why the town still exists today. I should have read more carefully. That information can be put into the article itself and the town need not be listed here. Tiamut 09:57, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

al-Subeih

Is this Arab es-Subeih? Please give a source for new localities. The base list is from Walid Khalidi. --Zero^talk 10:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Name change of article

User Abnn and myself (Al Ameer son) have come up with the consideration (not complete decision) of re-naming the article to List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict. This would include the three villages depopulated in the West Bank (Imwas, Yalo, Bayt Nuba) as well as the villages in the Golan Heights (Fiq, Kafr Harb, El-Al, Jalabina, Ashmora, Tel Hilal, Dardara, Wasit, Banias, Rawiya, Darbashiya, Khushniya, Za'aura, and still more) during the Six-Day War. Your opinions

As far as I know (and I don't know much about this unfortunately), none of the Golan Heights villages were forcefully depopulated. Didn't the Syrians run away from Kuneitra too? Anyway, unless I am wrong, I would only support the move if the article/list made it clear that not all villages were depopulated forcefully. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:36, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

In the case of the villages, I didnt consider the "forcing out" part which of course is the center of the article. I am pretty sure they abondoned their villages without being forced out, just not allowed back in, however I will look more into it because I too am not that knowledgable with the localities of the Golan Heights. As for the three villages in the West Bank, It is a fact the residents were forcibly removed. Whether we should add that to the list of villages article or the Six Day War article that is what I want to know.

P.S. Abnn and I only briefly discussed the West Bank villages. Al Ameer son

Depopulated cities

Why was it decided not to include cities with large Arab populations? Safed itself comes to mind, among others. nadav (talk) 05:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Cities are included because their former population (for the most part being Arabs) were expelled just like the Arabs of towns and village therefore those localities should be included in the list. - Al Ameer son

Wait a sec. Cities are included? I was under the impression that they are not, and I was asking why. The lead says: "The list does not include Arab districts of mixed cities which were partly or wholly destroyed," and Safed itself is not on the list. nadav (talk) 16:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

These should definitely not be included. First of all, they do not meet the main criteria of the article set forth by the title, namely the word depopulated, which they were not. Remember that this article isn't about depopulation of just Arabs (which would be inherently biased) and includes Jewish villages as well. Second of all, the cases of mixed cities (like Safed, Haifa, Jaffa, Lod and Ramla) are inherently different from Arab-only or Jewish-only villages, because in these cities infighting took place and the 'opposing' population was inherently hostile therefore they were expelled out of the necessities of war (I'm sure that most of the passive civilians who left were not expelled but fled, because what non-combatant can live with constant shelling on their residence?), and their places were taken by other civilians from the opposing side, therefore they were not depopulated. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 16:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Well whatever the case, I'm removing East Jerusalem Jewish neighborhoods for consistency then. However, I would prefer changing the title to be inclusive of all places that lost a portion of their ethnic composition. nadav (talk) 17:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi nadav i seem to have made a grammatical error, what I meant to say was that cities should be included. Whether or not the city is populated today its former majority whether it was Jewish or Arab (Haifa, Jaffa (Yafo), Safad, Tiberias, Baysan (Bet Shean), Lod, Ramla, Beersheba, Ashdod, Ashkelon) belongs in this article. If the Jewish towns of Atarot, Kfar Etzion etc. are included then mostly Arab-populated cities at the time should also be included. Or of course if cities are not included then just about all of the Jewish villages in this article also should not be included.

- Al Ameer son

All of the Jewish villages listed in the article were depopulated by force. Whether they were later re-settled or became part of larger cities (mainly Jerusalem) is not relevant. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 20:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The Arab populations of Haifa, Safad, Baysan, Majdal (Ashkelon), Lod and Ramla were either forced out on Israeli military orders or fled in the midst of war or attack by various Jewish militias. I received those sources from the citys' articles on wikipedia. Thus, those particular localities have every right to be included in the article. - Al Ameer son

Ynhockey, could you be more clear about what you envision as the aim of the list? Is it supposed to include all places whose population was expelled by force? If so, then the list would look completely different from how it looks now. Or is it meant to include all places where a city lost an ethnic component, e.g. Jews of Old City, Arabs of Safad (who fled because of an approaching Haganah force, if I recall correctly from a Haaretz article from a while back)? nadav (talk) 05:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no objective definition of "expelled by force" and too many boundary cases, so that would be a very bad idea for a criterion. It ought to be enough that a place had a significant population before 1948 that was absent after 1949; details can go in separate articles if they are interesting enough and good sources are available. I'd like to ask one thing though: the main list on this page was painstakingly synched with the best summary source (Walid Khalidi); please make additions like city quarters in a separate section so that the sourcing is not lost. --Zero^talk 08:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. We'll add quarters of cities, but we'll make sure that the sources for that are not confused with the source for the present list. nadav (talk) 09:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Mishmar Hayarden

I don't remember clearly, but wasn't Mishmar Hayarden re-established only about a year after it was destroyed? If so, I'm not sure it belongs here. --Zero^talk 14:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Messy Page

The article's contents and templates are all jumbled up, can some one fix that please -- Al Ameer son 12:45 31 May, 2007 (UTC)

Source

I added the source of what I wrote on the Six-Day War section of the article, and expanded the section a little. I only posted this here in the discussion because I forgot to in the brief edit summary. -- Al Ameer son 17:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Why the discrimination?

The village of Atlit has been removed from this list, apparently on the basis that "it was treated as part of the same town as jewish atlit. a town which was depopulated from just arab residents doesn't count". It must be a great consolation to those who were ethnically cleansed to know their case doesn't count because of them being Arabs. PR^talk 16:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Lots of joint Jewish-Arab towns were depopulated of Arabs (at least initially), notably Haifa, Safed, Lod, Ramla, etc. The article is about depopulated villages, not partly-depopulated villages, or villages depopulated only of one type of residents. Again, please stop putting an 'ethnic cleansing' spin on things. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 17:50, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I can see no justification to exclude mixed locations, particularly not when the inhabitants of these places were (presumably) minimally anti-immigrant and had tolerated (perhaps even welcomed) the arrivals living amongst them.

In addition, we risk robbing some Palestinians of a reference to their village of origin. It smacks of denial and reminds me a bit of: "The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies. ... the central thesis of this study is that Gypsies didn't suffer like the Jews indeed, didn't even suffer a genocide during World War II. ... Gypsies were ruthlessly slaughtered by the Einsatzgruppen like the Jews, but only because they were suspected of spying; Gypsies were deported to Auschwitz like the Jews, but only "to get rid of them, not to kill them;" Gypsies were gassed at Chelmno like the Jews, but only because they had contracted typhus; most of the few remaining Gypsies were sterilized like the Jews, not however to prevent their propagation but only to "prevent contamination of 'German blood.'" PR^talk 18:42, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I see you're making further changes - including "both under orders from the surrounding Arab states, and on their own accord. Some towns and villages were forcibly depopulated by the Jewish forces" which is blatant revisionism. The sources (mostly Khalidi and Morris) say nothing of the kind - Morris's list libel removed list is 98.5% place-names emptied by C = "Influence of nearby town's fall", E = "Expulsion by Jewish Forces", F = "Fear of being caught up in fighting", M = "Military assault on settlement" or W = "Whispering campaign - psychological warfare by Haganah/IDF" PR^talk 18:53, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not even going to reply to that. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 01:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The lead of this article states "(also known as Nakba amongst the Palestinians)." I fail to understand why the Palestinian take on these events is shunted into an "also known as". I'm forever against edit-warring, and I'll not re-insert the name of the village that's been removed for no reason that I can understand - but my question still stands, why the discrimination? Why the revisionism, ignoring what even the right-wing Zionist historian tells us? PR^talk 21:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Depopulation of purchased lands

I have removed the sections about Metula and Afula, which were results of legal land purchases and therefore clearly not in the framework of the Arab-Israeli conflict. There was no political driving force behind the depopulation of the villages, and they are not relevant to this list. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The Arab-Israeli conflict started no later than Dec 1882, when the first settlers shot dead a man from Safan. These are villages depopulated by the settlers, either by force or the threat of force, with subsequent ongoing violence up to and including murder. And you've removed evidence for substantial ethnic cleansing between 1936 to 1939. I'm sorry that part of it contradicts what's already there, but my source is excellent, a right-wing Zionist historian, specialising on the subject, who says that no Jewish settlements were lost, in fact there was a big increase. I shouldn't be having to tell an experienced editor about Reliable Sources and editing to policy. Later added - I have a lot more information on this subject, it turns out I didn't insert a portion I've written - but with the degree of WP:OWNERSHIP seen at this article, it's questionable whether this article can ever rise above Hasbara. PR^talk 23:07, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

PR, please stop soapboxing about how, in your opinion, the evil Zionists always wrong the victim Palestinians. This includes giving labels to each source you use (e.g. 'right-wing Zionist historian'), using the word 'ethnic cleansing' for the Arab-Israeli conflict, and making other unfounded claims to promote your point of view, without making any actual suggestions for article improvement or compromise. I was hoping to stop this nonsense and start anew after your quote of Normal Finkelstein's racist book as an argument above, by making it clear that I wouldn't reply, but it seems like you are continuing with this behavior. This has got to stop and like you said, an established editor like yourself, especially one who has been mentored by at least two experienced Wikipedians, should not have to be taught Wikipedia's basic policies, such as mutual respect. I hope you noticed that so far you have accused everyone (including myself) of trying to 'minimalize Palestinian suffering' or 'undermine the Palestinian cause', while yourself making wildly offensive accusations against Israelis and Jews alike.

Now, assuming you wish to continue actually discussing the issue at hand in a civil manner, my reply to your statement about the Arab-Israeli conflict is that it did not start with the killing of a Jew by an Arab or vice versa. A murder based on a property dispute or blood revenge is a crime, and not part of the political Arab-Israeli conflict. Even the article about it contains references to politically-motivated conflict and not fighting over money or compensation. As long as there is no reliable evidence that the events in Metula and Afula were political in nature, there is no reason to include them in this list. I'm not even talking about the fact that the depopulation of both of these villages was completely legal - that's for another discussion.

-- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 23:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

By the way, you will notice that I did not remove the same information from the Metula article - I'm not too fond of the wording, but recognize that the event is highly relevant to the town's history. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 23:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

• The Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli conflicts started on May 15, 1948.
• The Arab-Zionist conflict started in 1882, with burst of violence in 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-39 and after 30 nov 1947.
• Today, Zionism-related conflict refers to what happens in the so called occupied/claimed territories.

Please, use the right vocabulary to refer to the right things.

My personal is that "list-based articles" such as this one should be deleted (whatever the topic) but in the current case, maybe such a title as "List of villages depopulated in the context of the Arab-Zionist and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts" could be one "scholars" would consider more or less accurate.

Ceedjee (talk) 06:08, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Now that ain't nice. The term is Jewish, not Zionist. Even so, usually the Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine before 1948 is included in the framework of the Arab-Israeli conflict. I will look for sources if this point is really important to you. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 09:16, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Why Jewish rather than Zionist ? At that time, there were the JNF but also the WZO.

But all Jews were not Zionists (see Non-Zionism) and not concerned by the conflict while a/the reason of the conflict is the Zionist project, not the fact to be Jewish or not.

But no matter : all history work on the period talk about the History of Zionism (eg Laqueur), not the history of the Jews. Even today, there are more Jews in Galout than in Israel.

The reason is also clear for another reason, and no need to find sources for me : Israel is bornt in May 1948. There can hardly have any Israeli conflict before.

People includes the period before 1948 in the History of Israel as in the History of Belgium, it is talked about the Cro-Magnon man. But that is not the same issue. Even books written about the History of Israel nuances the period before '48 is the period of Zionism. Eg Howard Sachar, A History of Israel. From the Rise of Zionism to our Time, 2007.

About the conflict itself, Benny Morris, eg, titles his book : history of the Arab-Zionist conflict.

But I don't mind discussing with sources from wp:rs scholars and published by academic publishers, at the contrary.

Ceedjee (talk) 13:08, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I was simply commenting that Zionism is/was the Jewish struggle for self-determination, and referring to Palestinian Jews (Yishuv) simply as 'Zionists' (as if it was some racist fringe theory) is considered derrogatory and not nice, especially in Israel. Even the Arabs refer(ed) to Jews in Palestine as al-Yahuwd and not as-Sahyuni. That is precisely the reason why the Wikipedia articles on the issue, notably Arab-Israeli conflict and History of the Arab-Israeli conflict refer to tensions between Jews and Arabs before 1947, and not Zionists and Arabs. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 13:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Still not sources...

Neither about the idea that the use of the word Zionist would be racist

nor about your a priori on Israeli history.

Ceedjee (talk) 18:17, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's edit to the historical sources - in particular let's not impose a distorted version by which this is a Jewish-Arab (ie ethnic-based) conflict. It's a Zionist-Arab conflict, as even the reputable Israeli sources say.

Then we could stop deleting the names of villages where there was ethnic cleansing on the grounds that "it was only the Arabs who suffered" or "any beatings handed out by the new landlords were legal".

Then we treat the rest of the article consistently, so if we're already including pre-1948 examples then we include the (better?) documented pre-1920 examples on exactly the same basis.

And lastly, let's act in a cooperative and scholarly way and stop calling use of the historical evidence "SOAP-BOXING". We know full well that the Jews of Palestine desperately wanted to distance themselves from the immigrants, we know what happened to their leader/spokesman and to the separate agreement they'd made with the son of King Hussein. And we know that, in at least some cases, the Jews of Palestine were terrorized by the immigrants. PR^talk 21:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

If you stop soapboxing, for once, then people will stop asking you to stop soapboxing. For example, your latest propaganda speech, above, about "a distorted version by which this is a Jewish-Arab (ie ethnic-based) conflict" has nothing whatsoever to do with the content of this article. Also, do not present your biased misapprehensions as facts that "we know"; in fact, many of us know better. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:22, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I keep seeing material such as the following: (Rabkin, Yakov M., "A threat from within" (sub-titled "Jewish Opposition to Zionism"), Professor of History, University of Montreal. Published in French 2004, translated 2006.)

p136 Accusations of the utmost gravity are brought against the Zionists, who are considered to be more dangerous than the Karaites or the followers of Sabbatai Tevi, for they threaten to turn the Jews away from the straight path and corrupt their souls.

The memoirs of a German general attached to the Ottoman troops in Palestine during World War I present a point of view distant from intra-Jewish polemics:

How curious that the war has brought about an upsurge in the struggle between the Zionists and the non-Zionists, a battle that has turned ugly and done little to further the interests of Jews in general. The non-Zionists, that is to say those Jews who had no political objectives and who belonged to the Orthodox current, at the time the preponderant majority in Palestine. The Zionists residing there represented no more than 5 percent of the population, but were very active and fanatical, and terrorized the non-Zionists. During the war, the non-Zionists attempted to free themselves from the Zionist terror with the aid of the Turks. They rightly feared that the activities of the Zionists would destroy their good relations that prevailed amongst long-time Jewish residents in Palestine and the Arabs (Von Kressenstein).

Material like that leads me to believe that the Jewish-Zionist conflict was a lot more severe than any Jewish-Arab conflict - in fact, I'm not sure what evidence of the latter I've ever seen. 30 years later after WWII, no less a figure than Albert Einstein put his name to a letter that said, amongst many other things: "Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model. During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute."

I'm getting a clear message that the native Jews of Palestine found the activities of the (secular, immigrant) Zionists very much not to their liking. PR^talk 19:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

PR, what on earth does all this have to do with "List of villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict", the topic of this article? Again, stop soapboxing. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:55, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment

I've been asked on my page to comment. In my own experience I have never seen Ynhockey hold to ransom well documented, reliably sourced material from ‘my’ side of the world, unlike many others around here. He plays a tenacious game with the puck and stick, but within the rules. If hardball upsets you, play softball, elsewhere. So, PR, stick to concrete edits, and keep out of extensive remonstrative argumentation. I told you, further, a year ago why von Kressenstein's remarks are not germane to this, though I won't waste my time digging up a diff. Secondly, you do have a bad habit of making allusions to books over talk pages, instead of concretely harvesting the evidence in those books for specific article edits. You're not going to convince your adversaries, or anyone in fact, by arguing the philosophy of history here. On the other hand, Ceedjee's remarks on the terminology are spot on, and I do not note any intelligent reply to his observations. Ynhockey was wrong. To confuse endlessly 'Jews' with 'Zionists' is a retroactive historical perspective that tries, politically, to mix two realities, in part overlapping, but distinct, in order to conflate totally the cause of political Zionism with the history of what was, for millenia, an apolitical Judaism, and shows a lamentable ignorance, as PR argues, of the complexities of the history of Zionism and the Jewish people throughout modernity down to the foundation of Israel.

A third point.Ynhockey. I think you completely undercut otherwise reasonable grounds for your request several days ago to PR that personal views and soapboxing not waste our time on talk pages by your remark on 'Normal Finkelstein's racist book'. I don't usually cite wiki rules (WP:BLP), but here you have violated several, apart from the stupid errancy of the remark, which is simply prejudice. I have consistently asked PR to stop posturing on talk pages, to stick to practical edits on-page, with a minimum of comment when challenged, but your having made an ill-informed, erroneous, and venomous remark like that was not conducive to rational discussion, particularly when the scholar in question has been subject to an infamously destructive piece of political lobbying to deprive him of his livelihood. It's not in your style, I hope you drop it. Thank you.Nishidani (talk) 10:28, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Please tell me, if you can, what was wrong with this edit. If, as I suspect, it's entirely proper, how should I go about getting it into the article?:

1895 Metulla

Amongst the first settlements was one at Metula, founded on 12,800 dunams of bought land.[1. Morris, Righteous Victims p.55]. More than 600 Druze tenant farmers recieved paltry compensation and were driven off the land. The dislocated families harassed the settlers until 1904 when the settlers paid them a further 60,000 francs (3,000 Turkish pounds).[2. Eliav, Mordechai. Cited Morris, Righteous Victims, p.55.]

1911 Fula

Efforts to block land sales to non-citizens in the Jezreel Valley were only partially successful.[3. Mandel, Neville. Cited Righteous Victims, p.62.] and Fula was acquired in January 1911. Although the farmers had received compensation, they returned to harass the settlers. In May, HaShomer guards killed an Arab and three settlers were seized by the Ottoman authorities. They were held in prison for a year until bribes were paid. In the meantime, Merhavia's fields and houses were pillaged.[4. Morris, Righteous Victims. p.62.] PR^talk 11:18, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The remarks are impeccably sourced. It's simply that the details do not fit the content required by the title, i.e. 'List of villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict', which must refer to events from 1948 onwards. There was no 'Arab-Israeli conflict' in 1895-1911, as ceedjee pointed out. Put it in another article, on 'List on villages depopulated during the Zionist development of Palestine down to 1948. This is obvious, or, as Cicero would have said, it stands out like dogs' balls.Nishidani (talk) 13:43, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Well then, my edits are being held to a standard that nobody else is held to - I thought you said some editors were at least "playing to the rules"? Nor does that explain why depopulation doesn't count if it's only Arabs who have lost their homes (see Why the discrimination? above). PR^talk 14:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

If someone hooks you on a rule, adopt the rule and apply it all over the article. It is simple as that.Nishidani (talk) 15:52, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

well someone has placed 1921 and 1929 into the article....Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 15:00, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

As we're sometimes reminded, policy is what Wikipedians actually do - and the events of 1936 were in the article a year ago so it's clearly not an insuperable problem. I think we should put these two older examples in, and if we get any objection, change the name to "List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Zionist conflict". PR^talk 16:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Explain these entries?

• Bayit VaGan
• Giv'on HaHadashah
• Jewish Quarter of Hebron
• Kfar Ata
• Ramat Rachel

Can anyone? The first was abandoned for a year beore the residents returned. Is that depopulation? The second was re-established in 1977. The third refers to only a specific quarter of the city and not the city in its entirety. The fourth and fifth also abandoned for a year only, before the residents returned.

Is it fair to claim that these are villages that were permanently depopulated? Because that's what depopulation as used in this article means, at least for the over 400 Palestinian villages named here. That they were never re-established. I am intending to remove these entries, so those with a compelling counter-argument are asked to present it here. Tiamut^talk 18:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I would query whether these are "de-populated" in the regular meaning of the word too. Much earlier we were told that partial, ethnically-divided, depopulations can't be counted (see here) but that's quite unjustifiable. The other, perhaps most serious unwanted obstruction would be fixed if the article was re-named "... Arab-Zionist conflict" - currently, it's saying we can't have anything before 1948, and that's clearly not what editors want to work to. PR^talk 18:08, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the Jewish Quarter of Hebron because of an earlier discussion, and another Jewish neighborhood. As for the above, the article says nothing about permanent vs. temporary depopulation. I especially don't understand the objection for Giv'on HaHadasha, which was re-established by a completely different group only 48 years after the depopulation. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 19:44, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Merge suggestion

Recently the article was split into another one discussing only Arab villages during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. I believe this is a violation of WP:POVFORK because it's a "separate article treating the same subject" and there was no WP:SIZE issues with the original list. Maybe if the 1948 list is converted into prose, which is bound to be enormous, then it would need a split only per WP:SIZE. Otherwise there's no reason to do it. The list was okay as it stood, and there was no reason to split it. Please share your thoughts. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 06:41, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I re-created the list of Arab towns and villages that were depopulated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, because to confuse them with Jewish settlers' villages that were declared unlawful by the Israeli government a few years ago, for example, is to mix apples and oranges. The depopulated Arab towns and villages are currently the focus of academic scrutiny. New information is becoming available all the time, and this process will continue. To confuse that with the issue of Jewish settler towns in the occupied territories is a form of OR, because no historian writes about them as though they belonged to one category. Maintaining a separate list aids clarity. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 10:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how any of the above is relevant to Jewish villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, for example. The residents of Kfar Etzion or Kfar Darom, for example, were expelled from their homes by Arab armies just like many Arab villages were depopulated by the IDF during the same war. It would be an extreme violation of WP:NPOV to have a separate list for each of them.

About villages and towns outside 1948, as far as I remember (don't take my word for this), these were actually added by a pro-Palestinian editor who wished to lump Arab villages depopulated in 1967 with the ones in 1948, so after that other editors argued that in that case it would be fair to also include Jewish villages depopulated during other conflicts. For now I offer no opinion on this, and might offer one after the current issue of 1948 villages is sorted out. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 12:16, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

To further SV's point, the emptying of Arab villages in the 1948 war is in itself a coherent topic. It is the subject of recent, mainstream scholarship. A list of those villages is something an encyclopedia user might reasonably seek. Jd2718 (talk) 17:16, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

As there is a template and category aswell, the "POV fork" page is totally unecesary. Ideally only a category is needed, since the template contains the same info. A page, however, is certainly not needed. (The pics are nice though!) Chesdovi (talk) 23:49, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The advantage of a page is that citations and images can be added, which they can't to a template. The additional problem with a category is that entries can be inappropriately added and removed without anyone noticing. This page can be monitored, sourced, and expanded with text and images as appropriate. As Jd2718 says, it is the kind of page readers might come looking for, given that the issue is the subject of mainstream scholarship, and increasingly so. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I see there have been a couple of attempts to create a list of Arab villages depopulated when Israeli forces arrives, and each was thwarted by a merge or by adding Jewish villages, thereby creating a new type of list. For example, Ynhockey proposed merging List of Arab localities in Palestine 1948 with List of villages destroyed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war in November 2005, [3] and minutes later started adding Jewish villages to the latter. [4] Then he redirected the Arab list there in March 2006. [5]

The result is that information becomes harder to find, when the point of these lists is to make it easier. I suggest that this page be split into historically appropriate lists i.e. into groups of villages that historians regard as similar in type, in terms of when and why they were depopulated. This page could either be deleted, or could be kept to keep track of the lists, summary style. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 06:39, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

The fact that "citations and images" can be added to a page is of no consequence here. Images are not crucial and citations can be added to templates. The only circumstance that this page has a chance of remaining here is if it is expanded to include background infomation to the subject, in which case the title "list of" will have to be dropped. I am still of the opinioin that both a category and template which contains the same info is superfulous. And if the template is to stay, I see no reason tho keep this page in its present form. Chesdovi (talk) 13:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen citations added to templates; can you show me an example? As for additional text, yes, I will be adding more, but not so much that it'll have to lost its list status. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 13:27, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

We're swerved a little off-topic here. Who said anything about a template? The point is, the new article, List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War, is basically about Arab villages depopulated by the IDF in the war. In other words, it could be titled 'List of Arab villages depopulated by Israelis during the 1948 Palestine War'. How is that not a POV fork? What about Israeli villages depopulated by Arabs during the same war? Again, I'm not talking about non-1948 localities, which were added by other users and I have no opinion on keeping/removing those. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 16:44, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Because Arab towns and villages destroyed and depopulated in 1948 by Israeli forces are one of the main causes of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the reason it can't be resolved (right of return etc), and are the subject of recent mainstream scholarship. Israeli villages depopulated by Arabs are neither, so far as I know. It's not a POV fork; it's a fact fork. :-) SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 16:54, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Both points are irrelevant. Point one because it's original research; it's not the villages that constitute the cause, it's the exodus as a whole, which is even outside the scope of the war; it's like comparing apples and oranges. The second point is irrelevant because there are a lot of things that are the subject of recent mainstream scholarship that are not separate subjects based on WP:NPOV. How about List of villages depopulated of Jews during the Russian pogroms? Moreover, even your favorite historians (esp. Morris) often compare Jewish depopulation of Arab villages with Arab depopulation of Jewish villages. Morris famously said that one of the reasons that there were more Arab depopulated villages was that the Arabs managed to capture very few, while the Jews captured many more. With the possible exception of Walid Khalidi, I have never seen an historian who talked extensively about Arab depopulated villages but did not mention Jewish depopulated villages. You may be right that many of these villages were evacuated by order from the Israeli government, but quite a few were not. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 19:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

1880-1946 depopulated villages

This section is a workshop for Arab villages depopulated during the early Zionist period up to about 1930. It is quite hard to find precise information about this topic.

The following are land purchases from the Sursock, Farah, Ra'is, Atala, and Tueini families (Stein, Land Question in Palestine, p60). Most are in the Jezreel Valley, some further north. The first two might involve multiple villages and need to be expanded. Each needs individual checking that they were depopulated. Please add other possibilities, and strike out resolved cases. Zero^talk 05:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

• Nuris Block
  • Arab village of Nuris was depopulated in May 1948. Still looking for more info on other villages located in this "Block".
• Nahalal Block
  • Mahlul - village is mentioned in an account of the establishment of the Nahalal Block as still standing nearby [6]. Its not in our list of villages depopulated in 1948 and it seems to have been depopulated some time in between the founding of Nahalal and the 1948 war. Tiamut^talk 15:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Turns out Mahlul (also Mahalul, Mahloul) is Ma'alul, the village finally depopulated by military assault on July 15, 1948. The Sursuk family owned much of the land there and sold all but 2,000 dunums of the village land to Zionist developers. The village rented from them another 3,000 dunums until the place was depopulated in 1948. Tiamut^talk 18:28, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• Jinujar, Jinjar (Gingar or Ginegar of today) - included
  • Jenjar 118M,13J in 1922 (census,p38), Jinuj'ar 109J in 1931. SWP Junjar II,41 (sheet 8, top right corner). Definite case. Grootkerk p280-1. Also Dschindar.
• Tall al-Adas (Tel Adas, Tel-el-Adas) - included
  • Became Tel Adashim. not in SWP. 1922 census(Tal 'Adas,p38) 98M. 1931 census(Tel Adashim,p76) 251J. Grootkerk p288-9. Definite case.
• Harithya (Hartieh) - included
  • not in 1931 census. Now Sha'ar Ha'amarkim, Avneri p49.
    • Is that Sha'ar HaAmakim? Huldra (talk) 21:35, 27 October 2009 (UTC) Oops, yes. Zero^talk 21:43, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
      • I wonder; was it the same as el Harithiyeh, whose villages assaulted the SWP-people, doing work at Shayk Bureyk? See SWP, 1881, I, p.24 Huldra (talk) 21:48, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
        • Almost certainly, it was only 2km away. This incident is described in more detail in "Tent Work in Palestine" I, p163-164. I also note in that book an alternative name "Haroseth". Zero^talk 23:44, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• Sheikh Bureik - included
• Harbaj (Harbadj) - included
  • not in 1931 census. 1922 census (p33) 177M.
• Jabata - included
• Khuneifis (Kneifes, Kneifis, Knayfis) - included
  • Perhaps also Ikhnefis Can't see inside, but it seems that Ikhneifis was the SWP name for Khuneifis)Tiamut^talk 14:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Confirmed by Grootkerk p280 (in your mailbox), and became Kibbutz Sarid. A good one. Avneri, p122. 1992 census (p38) 38M, 1C.
• Jeida - included
• Tall al-Shaummam - also Tell esh-Shemmam, Tell Shemmam [7], Tel Shammam, and Tel al-Sammam (see last link for description of ritual practices at the swamp in the village that include paying homage to Sheik Ibreik). There was a railway station in this small hamlet which continued to exist after the foundation of the Nahalal block, for how long its unclear. [8] In 1926, a writer calls the railway station there "Tel Yehoshua (earlier Tel Shammam)".[9] Seems that Kfar Yehoshua was established on its land in 1927. [10] Tiamut^talk 14:09, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• Qusqus (Kuskus, Koskos, Kiskis) - seems to be known previously as "Khirbet Qusqus" (or this refers to adjacent ruins). Robinson calls it "Kuskus" and notes it is a village [11]
  • Grootkerk p46?
• Tab'un (Tabun, Tibon, Tib'on). Robinson calls it a village describing its name as "Tub'un"[12]. This and Kuskus came to be known as one place : "Kuskus Tabun" or "Qusqus-Tab'un" [13].
  • 1922 census (p33) Tub'un 151M.
• Affula - Stein p54, included
• Fula or al-Fula
  • This source says there was, besides "Affula", a place known as "Fula" that was destroyed along with Khuneifis, Shatta, and Jinjar. Tiamut^talk 19:55, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Another source notes that al-'Affula and al-Fula are often confused for one another. (Page is not available in google books preview but here is listing for 'Affula, al- and al-Fula. Tiamut^talk 20:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• Shatta [14], also Shutta, just outisde the Nuris block. Site of a postal station (see Postal history of Palestine). Today Beit HaShita. Tiamut^talk 20:21, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• 'Arab al-Sokhneh ('Arab al-Sakhina per Morris, date of depopulation unknown), also Al-Sakhina per Khalidi? Was this depopulated in 1948 then? Tiamut^talk 20:35, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• Shuna
  • See Al-Shuna and Khirbet al-Shuna. (Khalidi uses Khirbat al-Shuna to refer to a place previously known as "al-Shuna"). Morris lists "Shuna, al-" with date of depopulation unknown. Is one of these an Al-Shuna depopulated before 1948? Do we have duplicate articles? Tiamut^talk 20:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• Abu-Shusha, Haifa - not depopulated until 1948
• Waraqani (Worakany)
• Jidru (Jidrah, Jidro, Jedro) (SWP 5 Lh - just a farm in 1880), also see [15] which seems to be wrong. This 1924 map appears to show a village.
  • I think this village was actually named "Jiddah" or "Jedda". This source describes land purchases by the American Zion Commonwealth in 1925 that consisted of 10,000 dunams from Jiddah which were resold to others, including the JNF, who apportioned parts of it to Kfar Yehoshua, Nahalal and Beit Shaarim.
    • No, I think Jiddah=Jedda=Jida=Jeida listed above. Avneri has Jedda and Jidru on the same page (122) and they don't seem to be the same.
      • That makes more sense. I missed the Jeida entry. Tiamut^talk 18:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Jidro seems to be an alt spelling. According the source linked, the Jidro lands were purchased by the Sursuk family in 1872 and included the villages of Jidro, Kafrata, Darbeide, Kurdani, Majdal and Khirbaj-Khartia (I think this is Hartieh/Harithya). Tiamut^talk 10:23, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
• Kurdani (Kordany) - per this link from above. Plus Shaw Commission Report
• Darbeide - per above. Alt name Dar el-Beidha. Could this also be Ain-Beida of the Shaw Commission report?
• Sofsafe-Ain-Sheika - per Shaw report
• Mokbey - per Shaw report (Muqbeiya, Makbiya, Moukbeia, Makbey) 17605/2352.
• Rob-el-Nasreh, per Shaw report
• Sulam, ("Sulem", per Shaw report) - not depopulated.
• Majdal (not the Ashkelon one, but one in the Haifa district)

A good source on this topic is this one. I have included alt spellings for the names above as transcribed in the appendix of this work. Tiamut^talk 11:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

That's the same book! But I hadn't noticed that appendix. I have both Stein and Avneri's books in hardcopy. Zero^talk 11:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry for missing that link. Tiamut^talk 11:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

A lot of detail appears in the (hostile) book "The Claim of Dispossession" by Arieh Avneri. Some villages to consider: Zero^talk 11:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

• Ummlebis near Petach-Tikva, Avneri p80
  • Umlebbis,Mlabbis, Mlabbas, Mlebbes, and Mlebes are alt spellings. Tiamut^talk 17:09, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• 'Ayun Kara, Avneri p83; Avneri says it was deserted on account of malaria
• Qattra, Avneri p90
  • I believe this is Qatra - it remained populated until 1948.
    • Yes it is. Avneri is often very vague about whether a village ceased to exist or not. Zero^talk 12:15, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• Sejera, Avneri p100 - not depopulated until 1948
  • See also Shajara (the Arab village depopulated in 1948) and Sejera (Jewish settlement established in 1907).
• Umm Jubeil, Avneri p100
• Zebeih, Avneri p100
• Mes'a, Avneri p100
• Kafer-Sabet, Avneri p104 - 1948
  • Believe this is Kafr Sabt, depopulated in April 1948. Tiamut^talk 14:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• Shara, Avneri p104
• Sharona, Avneri p106 - included
  • See also Sharona (Jewish settlement) and Sarona (colony) (Templar settlement)
    • Avneri writes of a village founded by Circassians bought by the ICA in 1910, near Hadita and Kfar Kanna. That identifies it as Sharona, and shows that article is hiding the backgound of the place including the origin of the name. Zero^talk 12:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
      • Seems you are right. This source which discusses the fonding of the Jewish settlement of Rama (also known as Sarona) notes that it was located one km to the north of the Muslim Arab village of Sarona. Tiamut^talk 13:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• Marah, Avneri p108
  • Somewhere near Zikhron Ya'akov.[16] Avneri says moshava Giv'at Ada. Zero^talk 03:06, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
• Karkur, Avneri p108-9
  • Seems to be Pardes Hanna-Karkur. But see note below about Qamon. Zero^talk 03:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
• Beidous, Avneri p108-9
  • Somewhere near Karkur. Zero^talk 03:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
• Qamon, Avneri p122 - depopulated in 1948
  • Believe this is Pardes Hanna-Karkuran alt spelling for Qamun, depopulated in 1948
    • Avneri seems to say it is Yokneam. (See mention of Yokneam in Qamun.) Zero^talk 03:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
• Kufreta, Avneri p122
  • Alt spellings include Kufrata, Kafrata, Cefrata [17], and Kufretta. Tiamut^talk 13:53, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Could this also be Kefr Etta of the Shaw report? Tiamut^talk 12:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
    • In the article American Zion Commonwealth..(NB: unsourced!) ..say that they "purchased the lands of the Arab village "Kofrita""..and that land became Kiryat Ata. Could this be it? Huldra (talk) 08:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
• Tel el-Ferr (Tel-el-Fer), Avneri p126
• Jalud, Avneri p126
  • The village was known as Ain Jalud (named for the Nahr or river of Jalud). Seems also to have been located at or the near the site of Kasr Jalud, "Goliath's Castle". [18]
    • 3ein Jalut, by Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh ...is this the same? Huldra (talk) 15:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
      • 'Ayn Jalut and 'Ain Jalut (as well as 'Ein Jalut) seem to be the same place as Jalud or Ain Jalud. Both are referred to by multiple sources at the site of a battle between Saladin and Crusader forces. Tiamut^talk 16:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
        • I see we have:
          • Battle of Al-Fule (1183): Saladin/Crusaders
          • Battle of Ain Jalut, 1260: Mamluk/Mongol
            • Huldra (talk) 17:00, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• Khan ed-Duweir, Avneri p198 - depopulated in 1948
  • Also "Khan Duwair". Tiamut^talk 14:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Is this Khan al-Duwayr, Safad-district, depopulated in 1948? According to Hadawi, 1970, p. 69: by 1945 3,054 dunum was Jewish-owned, while 2,163 dunum was still Arab owned.Huldra (talk) 15:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
      • Transcription wise, they indicate identical names. I'll let Zero confirm the geography. Tiamut^talk 19:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
        • Seems to be it. Avneri says "Kibbutz Dan and moshav Shear-Yashuv", which are not far away. Zero^talk 00:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
• Khiyam el-Walid, Avneri p198,201 - 1948
  • =Khiyam al-Walid? -depopulated 1948, Huldra (talk) 15:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
    • But Avneri (p201) says "All the Arab villages in the Hula Valley remained in place except two: Khiyam el-Walid and Difnah." On p198: "later Kibbutz Lahavot-Habashan". So there is some story. Maybe it was re-established or moved. Zero^talk 02:10, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
• Difnah - included
  • See above for Khiyam al-Walid. Zero^talk 02:10, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I guess it is Dafna. Avneri has quite a lot. SWP shows no habitation. Zero^talk 04:18, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
• Malkiya, Avneri p203
  • See also the Shia village of Al-Malkiyya depopulated in 1948 and the Jewish settlement of Malkia
    • That is probably it but I'm not 100% sure. Avneri says it was owned by heirs of Hussein Sulayman Buza, Moslem Kurds living in Damascus.

Avneri says there is a list in the report of the Shaw Commission, vol II, p1074, exhibit 71. I'll get it. Zero^talk 11:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

*Haneifa This is Knayfis/Khuneifis, etc.

• • mentioned in the famous Dayan quote about Jewish villages having replaced Arab villages [19]. Note almost all the villages he mentions seem to have been depopulated in the period before the 1948 war (all except Haneifa are now mentioned in our list above). Tiamut^talk 15:16, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
  • On second thought it is possible that Haneifa is an alt spelling of Knuneifis. For a clue to its location, Dayan says Haneifa was replaced by the Jewish locality of Sarid. Tiamut^talk 15:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
    • And I just saw your note above. Indeed, Haneifa is an alt spelling for Knayfis/Khuneifs, etc. Tiamut^talk 15:21, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Petersen

There are a lot of structures in Peterson, Andrew (2002). A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine: Volume I (British Academy Monographs in Archaeology). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197270110. ..which belongs to villages depopulated long before 1948. Now, not all of these villages were depopulated because of the "Arab-Israeli conflict" (even broadly interpreted) ...but as we (at least not I!) do not know *why* they were depopulated, I just put the info here, as I find them, Huldra (talk) 18:15, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Bassum (Khirbat): location: 1954.2378, 32.44N/35.28E. (Petersen, 2002:111) described as "deserted village", deserted for some time ("at least a hundred years"). Remains: a very nice mosque, +a courtyard-building (possibly a khan), + cemetry

Discussion

By the way, sources in the know that I've spoken to indicate that as many as 70 villages were depopulated prior to 1948, most via land purchases, but a couple also from disease or in earthquakes. We have some way to go before reaching that figure. Tiamut^talk 18:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

We can see what localities disappeared between 1880 and 1940s by comparing maps and/or census lists. This would give a long list, needing work for every name. Soon I will have the 1922 and 1931 village lists online. Zero^talk 00:55, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Not to rain on everyone's parade, but do places that were peacefully dismantled due to change of ownership of the land really belong in an article about villages that were "depopulated" during the "conflict"? I mean, Sharona was "depopulated" in 1928 (everyone left), should we add that as well? Putting this stuff in an article with "conflict" in its title implies the places were "depopulated" due to violence or a threat thereof stemming from said "conflict", don't you think? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:27, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes and no. According to the Hope Simpson 1930 report into the 1929 Palestine riots; a lot of conflict stemmed from these land-sales; e.g. in the Jezreel Valley the British had to use force to expel the Palestinian villagers. I´m not saying *everything* should go into the article: as it says on the top of this section: this section is a workshop. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 20:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree that "conflict" implies violence or threats of violence, even though there was violent protest associated with many of these depopulations. I'd prefer that the list be fairly inclusive, with the individual details appearing in the individual articles. But the name of the page will remain an issue. I also think we should create a category for these villages, and the name of that category will be another conflict. :) Zero^talk 00:55, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Sursock sales

The report of the Shaw Commission on page 117, says that sales to Jewish land organizations in the Vale of Esdraelon (equal to Jezreel Valley for this purpose) from the Sursocks had amounted to more than 200,000 dunams during the mandate period so far. Twenty-two villages were included. "After the sales, the Arab cultivators, having received compensation, left all these villages with the exception of Mahloul." The villages are not listed in the Report (I think), but the table on the left appears on page 1074 of the Minutes of Evidence. The villages listed are: Tel-el-Adas, Jalud and Tel-el-Fer, Mahloul, Sofsafe-Ain-Sheika, Ain-Beida and Mokbey, Jinjar, Rob-el-Nasreh, Afule, Jabata, Kneifis, Two-thirds of Sulem, Jeida, Tel-el-Shemmam, Hartieh, Sheikh-Breik, Harbaj, Kiskis and Tabon, Jedro, Kordaneh, Kefr Etta, Majdal. (It isn't clear how to count 22.) Zero^talk 10:04, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps "Sofsafe-Ain-Sheika" actually refers to two separate villages? Sofsafe may be Safsaf. Ain Sheika? I don't know. It could be a bastardization of 'Ain Sakhina. But it needs more research. Tiamut^talk 18:40, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The 1922 census lists "Al Sufsafeh" under "Tribal areas, subdistrict of Haifa", but I can't see anything that looks like Ain Sheika. The way the Shaw table is laid out seems to indicate these should be close to Mahloul which I think is Malul in SWP 5,Mi. Just to the east of Malul (close to Nazareth) SWP shows a watercourse 'Ain es Sufsafeh. SWP 5,Mi has a watercourse (no village) Ain Esh Sheikhah between Jebata and Jeida, seems very close to Ramat David. Zero^talk 23:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Another useful and detailed source is The Jewish National Fund by Walter Lehn with Uri Davis, Kegan Paul International 1988. The appendices include some 50 pages which I translated from the memoirs of JNF agents Musa Goldenberg and Joseph Nahmani, detailing the various methods by which the lands of particular villages were acquired, and the populations removed. As far as I know, the books themselves have never been translated into English; but for Hebrew speakers (does that include you, Tiamut?) they are very useful sources. RolandR 17:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Here is a 1925 Zionist map of the Jezreel holdings, showing many of the Arab villages. Zero^talk 13:01, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Rename

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was consensus against move as inaccurate.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

---

List of villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict → List of villages destroyed by Israel during the Arab-Israeli conflict — This need to be rename to List of villages destroyed by Israel during the Arab-Israeli conflict because it more factual. Depopulate be Pro-Israel POV in attempt to de emphasize destruction. Other discussion on article name here[20] Ani medjool (talk) 23:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose A quick look at the list shows (a) some of the villages were depopulated before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and thus could not have been "destroyed by Israel", (b) some of the villages were principally Jewish, hence they were not destroyed by the Yishuv or by Israel, and (c) some of the villages were repopulated, indicating that they were depopulated but not destroyed. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 00:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. There is no perfect name for this list, but the current name is better than what you propose. MS gave reasons. Zero^talk 00:44, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, it's quite easy and NPOV to say that they were depopulated during the conflict (anything in the region that had population before fighting began and today is a ghost town would fit), but this proposed name seemingly has an anti-Israel POV. Nyttend (talk) 04:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
• Comment Neither proposed name is perfect. Many villages were indeed destroyed, such as those whose lands were incorporated into Tel-Aviv — Abu Kabir, Manshiyya, Summayl, Shaykh Muwannis and Salama. Others were indeed repopulated, such as Ein Kerem, Ein Hod, Deir Yassin. Some were simply left standing, but not repopulated — eg Lifta. The most common fate of these villages was a mixture of the above — homes were destroyed, but mosques and municipal buildings remained, and were put to alternative uses. In Beersheba and Kiryat Shmona, for instance, the mosques have been turned into museums; in Tiberias, a mosque was turned into a night club; and the mosque in Lajjun was notoriously used as a carpentry workshop by Kibbutz Megiddo. On balance, the current name is slightly better, since all destroyed villages were depopulated, but not all depopulated villages were destroyed. But if possible we should find a term to indicate that they were forcibly depopulated, and in several hundred cases almost totally razed to the ground. RolandR 16:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Delete both articles

I think both articles should be deleted because they contribute nothing but conflict. There is no way these articles can be made NPOV and their existence is dubious (what other conflict has a list of "depopulated" villages?). Further, there is very little sourcing on both pages and there is still much debate over who did what, where and when. It is also unclear if the articles refer to "forced" depopulation or if the populations merely fled or just left. Metallurgist (talk) 00:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Bazonka's recent edits

Thanks for your edits, but you must provide a source for your claim. Your drive-by taggings are therefore removed. We already have a source claiming that these places were depopulated before 1948. As already clear from the article the historical record may not be as straightforward as we would hope. Any additional information on this subject is welcome. Please feel free to contribute. Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 22:05, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Name change article problem

So the name has been changed. We now have parity because every Jewish or Israeli illage settlement that has been depopulated is registered on the page, while the over 400 Palestinian villages destroyed as a result of 1948 are 'evaporated', all being shifted to a main page. Thus we have the counter-factual appearance of balanced losses. There is not even a selection of the major villages that have wikilinked articles. Very nice. Nishidani (talk) 09:07, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

There are two options: Either the name is changed or the material referencing a different time frame, outside the scope of the article, is removed. In either case, the only thing that evaporates is historical distortion and anachronism. I would suggest merging the so-called "main page" with this one - there is no reason for two "lists" that duplicate the same material.--Geewhiz (talk) 08:14, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Pre-1948 villages

Gilabrand is repeatedly deleting the list of villages depopulated pre-1948 as a result of the Zionist immigration. The only justification I can think of is that "Arab-Israeli conflict" only started when Israel started. Pedantically that is true, but it isn't the usual way the phrase is used. In fact I wonder if there is any book at all on "the Arab-Israeli conflict" that doesn't start in 1882 or earlier. At the very most, this is a problem with the page title. There is no reason whatever that Wikipedia should not list those villages. Choices: (1) a separate article, with a link to it in this article. (2) in this article with a title change to cover it. (3) in this article with the present title. Please give your opinions. I prefer (3). Zero^talk 11:24, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

All the relevant data should be one one page. Gilabrand appears to agree with this. If there is some fixation with the idea that 'Arab-Israeli' implies only 1948 (or 1947) onwards, then that is solved by simply writing 'Arab-Zionist conflict'. Though Zionism is not a dirty word in Israel, to the contrary, a lot of editors there dislike it on wikipedia. But this change would cover 1882-2014 (the practice is still going on:12 khirbehs are up for demolition in the South Hebron Hills). The simplest solution is (3), involving the reintroduction of (a) all pre-1947/8 depopulated villages and (b) the list of Palestinian villages forked off wrongly to a separate page. Nishidani (talk) 13:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a part of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It started before 1948 and the name doesn't change that. We have an article named Israeli–Palestinian conflict which covers the whole period, as it should be. --IRISZOOM (talk) 21:55, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

• 1.) Much of this list is sourced to [21]. I have no idea who runs theis website, but surely we can find something more neutral/reliable than a website called nakba. I have sourced the first village. They all need sourcing.

2.) Some villages that were Muslim pre-1948 ceased to exist when they were sold by the owners of the land to Jews. Under Ottoman and British law such sales were legal. Other villages may have ceased to exist pre-1948 for other reasons. The reasons need to be provided and sources. 3.) Current language: "List of Palestinian villages uprooted before 1948 with the time of expulsion" is highly un-neutral. I am attempting more neutral language.ShulMaven (talk) 21:36, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Article desperately needs reliable sources

{{multiple issues}}: This article is a list that I have tagged and the issue is that most of the villages are sourced to a website and, well, anybody can create a website. Each village needs to be sourced to establish: 1.) that such a village existed. 2.) why did the villagers leave (i.e., was the land sold. when? by whom? to whom?) 3.) If there is an assertion that a Muslim / Arab / Druze village was replaced by a Jewish one, that claim needs ot be sourced. Sources, people sources. You can't just go listing stuff without reliable sources.ShulMaven (talk) 22:09, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

If you read all of the sections above you will see that some of us started to work quite hard on the pre-1948 localities but ran out of steam. That's why the article got left in a poor state. The web page this is useful for ideas and map coordinates but I agree it is not a sufficient reference by itself. Zero^talk 00:34, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

One point on which you are wrong: "Eviction" is the correct word for legal removal of a tenant by the owner. It is the usual word in common speech, and also correct as a legal word in all English-speaking countries as far as I am aware. Please see Eviction. Zero^talk 00:34, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

• As Zero says, The web page this... is not a sufficient reference by itself. It is certainly not a reliable source. I have no idea who created it, and that is the problem. It does offer a starting point to researchers, who can use the lists it provides in order to find reliable information. However, st present it is used as a source, following virtually name on the list and, thereby, giving the appearance that the information is reliably sources. It needs to be removed.ShulMaven (talk) 01:57, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
• I tagged the page with sourcing problems because the pre-1948 list of depopulated Arab villages seems to be drawn form this this source. The only remedy I see is to source each village.ShulMaven (talk) 08:05, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

One way this will be solved, is looking at the old maps and sources. Just take one example from the list today:

• Kafr Ata, 1925 (Kfar Ata - today Kiryat Ata)

Now, it is easy to find the location of Kiryat Ata on SWP map V, and find that it was there called Kefr Etta. And from that find the Conder and Kitchener, SWP I, p. 285 description. From it we see that the land was owned by an absentee landlord (a "Greek from Constantinople"), iow the inhabitants were tenant farmers. These absentee landlords as a rule sold the land to the highest bidder, which almost inevitable were Zionist organisations. Who in turn kicked off the Arab tenants (who often ended in the city slums as day labourer, according to one of the White Papers of that time....etc, etc) Btw, Kefr Etta was mentioned in the 1596 daftar, see User:Huldra/HA#p.193, then it had 15, all Muslims, households. I *will* -eventually- get around to adding the 1596 + SWP- history to former Arab, presently (mostly Jewish) places in Israel ...it has just been very low down on my priority list. Huldra (talk) 20:32, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Split this into its 2 logical halves

Overwhelmingly, the pre-1948 events on this page regarding Arab villages are sales. Legal sales to new owners. With the Arab tenants legally evicted. There was no "Arab-Israeli conflict" pre-1948, there were struggles among Ottoman, then British overlords, Greek Christians, Arab Christians, Druze, Zionists, and Arab Muslims - who also sometimes struggled violently among themselves. But pre-1948 these struggles were conducted within the urisdiciton of 2 successive Imperial regimes. It is incorrect and misleading to group - as is done here - the depopulation of a a Druze village in the 1890s by Ottoman officials in the context of a Druze uprising, or the sale of a Muslim Arab village by a Lebanese Christian to a Jewish land agency in the 1920s together under the rubric of "Israeli-Arab Conflict. i move that this article be split in 2 at 1948.ShulMaven (talk) 02:51, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

The page is already in fragmented state, with the 1947-9 Palestinian villages and the 1967 Golan villages on their own pages. Those have to be considered at the same time in any reorganization. Either it is all together, or it is split in a uniform logical manner. I don't think just making one more division will lead to the best result. Split can be by time period, or by ethnicity, or perhaps other ways. It is hard to find good page titles. Also more people should be involved in the discussion. Why don't you make a concrete proposal for a structure of all this material (including the other two pages)? Zero^talk 11:04, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Villages which were legally bought by Zionist, (mostly from absentee landlords), and where the Arab tenant farmers were evicted was at the very heart of the "Arab-Israeli conflict", or more correct: "Arab-Yishuv conflict". These former tenant workers typically ended up in the big city slums as day labourers, and it was these people who fuelled the clashes/uprising in the mid-thirties. The White papers of the time mentions this explicitly.

Also, I consider this list a very much a "work in progress"; as such I would like it -for now- to be in one place. Huldra (talk) 20:52, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

References

I removed from "Shatah, unknown date (Beit HaShita)", and a couple of others. However, Debresser reintroduced the cn-tags. I would argue that it is completely unnecessary...read the story of Beit HaShita, and it is all there. It is basically impossible to "cite", as it was emptied of its Palestinian population over a period of time.....same as with Afula, Kiryat Ata, etc. The Elyashiv data is also now in the article (will be updated with the 1945 data, eventually) So why on earth put cn-tags? Seriously, is this reasonable? Huldra (talk) 22:42, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

If the Beit HaShita article provides sources for Shatah and others, then please cite those sources here as well. You know well enough that WP:Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Debresser (talk) 23:18, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Huh? Have you read the articles I mentioned above? Do you want me to list the 1922, 1931, & 1945 data for each and every article here? Huldra (talk) 23:33, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps I do not understand you? I think that it can reasonably be expected that 1 source be provided for every village in this list that indeed it was depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict. That is all I asked for. Debresser (talk) 18:32, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

No, I´m afraid you cannot demand *one* source for each and every village. As with Beit HaShita, you could get 3 sources (1922, 1931 and 1945-data)...but, firstly, if you want that (all 3 sources) the article will be very messy, for a start (though that might not concern you?) Secondly, I don´t think you have a right to make that demand....not when the sources are in the target article, say Beit HaShita. Huldra (talk) 23:42, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Although in general Wikipedia articles should be sourced independently of each other, which is a good thing, it isn't clear that the rule always applies to articles that are just lists. If you look at articles whose names start with "List of.." very many of them don't have a citation on each list item. Perhaps this should be clarified on some policy page. Zero^talk 00:38, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

@ Huldra References are nice and small, not messy. Thing is like this, unsourced information can be removed at any time. Is that what you want? Debresser (talk) 12:51, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

@ Debresser Well, what I would really like is some equal standards....that all, say Israel, or Jewish-related lists had the same sourcing standards that you demand here. (I would also have liked to see some more of the pro-Israeli editors here actually edit Israeli or Jewish -related articles: most of those articles are absolutely totally shitty. Seriously: many with not a single source.) Say, what if I demanded the same standard of List of West European Jews, List of Scottish Jews, List of European Jewish nobility, List of Jews in religion, List of Jewish Kabbalists, List of rosh yeshivas and List of Jewish mysticism scholars, as you demand for this list, just for a start? Would you like that? Huldra (talk) 23:21, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

@Huldra I am here now. I don't much care for insinuations as though I hold a double standard. Debresser (talk) 15:36, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@ Debresser Have you looked at any of the above links? Can you see anyone demanding the standards you are demanding here? And no, it did not take me long to find those lists... virtually all of the List of something Jewish are like that. Not that this surprises me. Years ago, I edited Cinema of Palestine.. one user (User:Einsteindonut) challenged each and every statement there, and removed those he did not like. *Everything* which was not impeccably sourced went out. For the hell of it, I went over to Cinema of Israel and wrote for each unsourced statement. You know what? Those unsourced statement are still there...and still unsourced....after more than 6 years. I repeat: I would really like to see some more of the pro-Israeli editors here actually edit Israeli or Jewish -related articles: most of those articles are absolutely totally shitty. Huldra (talk) 22:48, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

This kind of disagreement is basically about proportionate sharing of a collective workload. A large number of editors revert, tag or put in a cn notice when, in a blink, they could check by googling if other sources are available. Those who just drive-by don't work, they create work for others. In trhe present case, what courteousness would require if there is a suspicion, is to take three villages at random, check each against the given census sources, and if you find one or more inexact, then demand that the original editor review them. If one has no grounds that a slip up has occurred, one is only bothering a page. Nishidani (talk) 09:15, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Huldra and Nishidani I do understand the point that 1. it is frustrating to have so much information challenged, and 2. not all information is equally challenged. Nevertheless, once information is challenged, for whatever reason, it should be sourced. I have no problem with keeping the tags a long time (I generally do not believe in removing unsourced information within days weeks or months, rather years), but removing the tags is not something that can be done (unless you can show e.g. that it was drive-by tagging from an one-purpose IP). I don't see reasons for Huldra's frustration, after all, a tag is not a badge of shame, but a call for input. Debresser (talk) 12:23, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Debresser, I do not mind the general cn-tags...they show me which articles which needs edit, and which do not. What I do mind, is when you re-add the cn-tag to articles like above mentioned Beit HaShita, when it is very clear, clicking on the Beit HaShita-article that it is well-sourced. And it is not only you require higher standards for Palestinian that Israeli info....in this article you don´t seem to care one bit that the depopulated Jewish villages is mostly completely unsourced! I have e.g.. looked for sources saying Kiryat Ata was depopulated in 1929... that is actually totally unsourced (not in the source given in the article), just as one example. I repeat again: I would really like to see some more of the pro-Israeli editors here actually edit Israeli or Jewish -related articles: most of those articles are absolutely totally shitty Huldra (talk) 16:18, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Mulebbis?

Should not Mulebbis be here, somewhere? Huldra (talk) 20:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

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Merge

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No merge given the uncontested objections. Klbrain (talk) 20:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

---

Propose to merge Population displacements in Israel after 1948 -> List of villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict
The source article is an overlapping topic of merely 4.6kb and is not likely to grow. Better be merged here.GreyShark (dibra) 09:43, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that, except for a few localities that are already here, most of the localities in the other article do not satisfy the criteria for this article. Zero^talk 12:30, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Id oppose, this list has a pretty clear criteria and as a subject is treated as its own in reliable sources. nableezy - 17:08, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely oppose. Seth J. Frantzman started the Population displacements in Israel after 1948 article back in 2009; to me it looks as if it is (was) filled with his OR. I strongly oppose merging the Frantzman mess into this article: they cover two different topics, Huldra (talk) 21:50, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 24 May 2021

"Zamarin, unknown date (Zichron Yaacov)" -- the date is 1882, ref: https://books.google.com/books?id=alVBAAAAIAAJ&q=1882 quote: 'Zamarin, near Haifa.' Zamarin was the Arab name of the town. When the first Jewish settlers came there, in 1882, they gave it a name of their own, Zichron Yaakov, meaning 'In memory of Jacob', in honour of the Baron Rothschild who had helped to found the settlement.

Please also amend the name to Zikhron Ya'akov, according to WP:HEBREW. --Crash48 (talk) 17:14, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

 Done Run n Fly (talk) 17:50, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Run n Fly: many thanks for inserting the ref, please also insert the cited date (1882) instead of "unknown date" --Crash48 (talk) 18:21, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

 Done Run n Fly (talk) 18:27, 24 May 2021 (UTC)