This study deals with internal refugees - a small sector of the
Palestinian refugees, driven out of their homes by Zionist military
organizations, who fled to nearby towns and villages. They were
later given Israeli nationality, but not full rights, as stipulated
within all international conventions, including the principle of
the right to return. There are no official statistics for the total
number of internal refugees driven from their homes in 1948 and
there are conflicting estimates among researchers. In 1950 UNRWA
estimated that 46,000 Palestinians remained in their own villages -
30 percent of the total 156,000 Arabs who remained in Israel. Of
the 162 villages that were completely demolished within Galilee and
the north, refugees from only 44 villages remained. The inhabitants
of the other 118 destroyed villages were driven out of the country.
In his article "After the Catastrophe the Arabs in Israel
1948-1950", Charles Kayman adds that of the 69 Arab villages that
remained after the Nakba, 47 absorbed refugees (in addition to the
towns of Lod, Jaffa and Abu Ghosh).
In some villages the refugees constitute a high percentage of the
population. In Majd el Kurum, Jish and Tamra a third of the
population is made up of refugees. In Nazareth and Kufur Yaseef a
quarter of inhabitants are refugees and in Yafet Al-Nasra, Makr and
Jedeida more than 50 percent are refugees. Research done by Mahmoud
Sa'eed on a sample of refugees demonstrates that they exhibit a
strong adherence to the right of return to their original villages,
even though they believe that this will not be easy and had become
for many a distant dream. Most did not sell or exchange their lands
within the demolished villages and consider any move to do so as
high treason. Most refugees settled within the villages where they
took refuge, but visit their former villages as frequently as
possible.
Additionally, it should be noted that in most villages where there
are refugees the original inhabitants treat them as refugees. They
are identified according to the names of their villages, such as Al
Barawnah, or Al Akarthah. In some villages, lanes are named after
the refugees living in them, such as Al Ma'ayrah Lane in Arrabeh
and Al Barawnah Lane in Jedeideh.
Internal refugees have bequeathed their adherence to the right of
return to their children and grandchildren. In the past, Israeli
Independence Day was an appropriate opportunity for the refugees to
visit the destroyed villages as the Israeli authorities treated
this leniently despite the fact that all these villages are, even
now, considered closed military areas under emergency mandatory
laws.
Many first generation refugees refused to visit their villages for
some time after hearing of the comprehensive destruction of their
houses and the hallmarks of their home towns. Some old houses have
been left standing, but mostly, cactus plants and palm trees are
the only tell-tale signs of the location of a destroyed
village.
Some of the remaining houses have been occupied by settlers and in
most of the villages and towns, Muslim and Christian graveyards
have been purposefully left to deteriorate by the Ministry of
Religion. Many mosques and churches have been used by settlers as
cowsheds and even as centers for drug distribution or prostitution.
Complaints have been filed to request police action against the
desecration of religious sites, but these have been ignored, while
individuals who have tried to maintain or renovate holy sites have
been harassed and arrested by the police at the behest of the
Israeli Land Authority. This institution has closed down some
sites, such as Al-Ghabisiyyah mosque in the Acre area, to prevent
Palestinian Israelis from praying there or renovating it.
Legal Measures Taken Against Internal Refugees
As the military situation normalized after the 1948 war, the
Isreali authorities took steps to consolidate their expropriation
of Arab lands and villages, driven by the fear that the Palestinian
refugees would return to their villages. They implemented the
practical plan of setting up Jewish settlements on Arab lands and
demolishing the Arab villages nearby in a bid to erase their memory
from the Palestinian villagers' consciousness. They also enacted
emergency regulations, such as imposing military closure on these
areas.
Emergency Regulations (Use of Uncultivated Land) of
1948
On October 15, 1948 the Ministry of Agriculture warned land owners
with uncultivated fields that unless they began to farm their land,
the ministry would have the right to place it under its
jurisdiction and exploit it for agricultural purposes, in the
interests of the "young state". According to these regulations the
ministry could take over the land for a period of 35 months.
Emergency Regulations Concerning Absentees' Property of
1948
All the refugees' property was placed under the control of the
Custodian of Absentee Property. According to these regulations the
definition of an absentee included Palestinians driven out of their
original villages. However, the Custodian's authority was limited
to preservation of this property during an interim period with no
authority to transfer or sell it to others.
This hindered the Israeli authorities in transferring property to
new settlers, so they worked to take permanent control over
"absentee" lands by passing more new legislation.
The Absentee Property Law of 1950
This law was issued on March 14, 1950. Under it, the Custodian was
considered the owner until an "absentee" could prove that he was
not absent or not considered legally absent (which has no legal
precedence). This law also prevented the Custodian from
transferring ownership to any party other than the "development
authority".
After the establishment of this authority, land ownership was
transferred to it. However this was a slow process, so under a
government decision issued on September 29, 1953 the Custodian
agreed to transfer everything still under his control to the
"development authority", which in turn handed over large tracts of
land to the Israeli Land Administration (ILA).
The Land Aquisition Law of 1953
According to this law, the Israeli authorities offered financial
compensation to the "absentees" whose property was transferred to
the Custodian. The ILA took over all appropriated lands with the
aim of coercing the "absentees" into accepting compensation.
However, indications are that only a very small percentage accepted
compensation; not because the sums offered were too low, but
because they insisted on returning to their lands and refused to
recognise any of these laws.
The Practical Steps
The Israeli government took a number of practical steps to close
this "file", including attempts at resettlement. A total of 4,478
refugees were living in Nazareth, with 5,222 in the surrounding
villages. The Israeli authorities considered it dangerous to have
such a large Arab concentration in one area, so they allowed some
refugees from Haifa to return - on condition that they did not
return to their own homes. They also allowed 560 of the 1,430
inhabitants of 'Aylut village to return, on the recommendations of
a ministerial committee dated March 4, 1949 (file no. c/302 in the
government archives). The same file contains recommendations for
resettling the inhabitants of Tarshiha in Mi'ilya and Al Rihana
village in Kufur Kamma, in addition to a comprehensive plan to
resettle refugees in Majd el Kurum.
Consecutive Israeli governments established a number of official
bodies such as "The Refugee Housing Authority" and "The Population
Transfer Committee" which received recommendations from the
military authorities to move refugees, and even some residents of
surviving villages, from one place to another, to facilitate Jewish
settlement on their lands.
Illustrative of this government policy of encouraging the refugees
to forget their original villages and live in the villages of
refuge was a letter sent by the Israeli government to the
inhabitants of Kufur Bir'im stating that they may now live in the
houses of other refugees from Jish and Kanounya. These houses were
also considered absentee property and owned by the
government.
Under article 125 of the emergency regulations - which are still
valid today - army governors declared certain areas containing
destroyed villages as military zones, which the refugees were
prohibited from entering without a permit. These regulations were
also used to impede the Israeli High Court of Justice decisions
ratifying the refugees from Iqrit, Bir'im and Ghabsiya's right to
return to their villages.
Most of the houses in the evacuated Arab villages were destroyed a
few years after the declaration of the state of Israel. The Israeli
authorities carried out an active campaign to establish settlements
on that land, building more than 109 between October 1948 and
August 1949, although most were built in the vicinity of these
villages rather than directly on them. The settlements were given
the names of the destroyed villages nearby. Beit Dajan was warped
into Beit Djoun (the settlement's name), the village of Sa'sa'
became Kibutz Sasa, Al-Bassa was distorted into Betset (a moshav)
and Saffouryeh into Tsefouri (also a moshav), while 'Amqa was
altered to Moshav Emka. This policy was aimed at reversing reality
- giving the erroneous impression that the Arab names were derived
from Hebrew.
Conclusion
Despite the national, historic and geographical bonds between the
Palestinian people and the refugees, one should emphasize the
peculiarities of the situation for the refugees that remained
within their homeland. Unlike refugees elsewhere, they carry the
Israeli nationality. The Israeli authorities and law consider them
Israeli citizens upon whom Israeli laws should be applied; but in
effect they face racial discrimination and national subjugation,
despite their right, as citizens, to complete equality. Some would
like to see the refugee issue in general and the internal refugee
issue in particular closed, never to be heard of again. However, I
believe the time is ripe for new initiatives in the struggle to
secure the legal and civil rights of the internal refugees.
Bibliography
Cohen, Hillel. 2000. Presentee Absentees, Palestinian Refugees in
Israel since 1948. Jerusalem. The Center for Research on Arab
Society
Kayman, Charles. 1948. After the Catastrophe - The Arabs in the
State of Israel 1948-1950.
Sae'ed, Mahmoud. 1997. "The Exiled Refugees in their Homeland", a
study presented at the conference on equality in Nazareth