The lesson from Iqrit and Kafr Birim

Washington Much as Palestinians would like to be hopeful there is nothing on the horizon to assure them, as the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried in occupied Jerusalem earlier this month, that a peace agreement was still achievable this year, or what her Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, maintained that Israel has "no hidden agenda" regarding Israeli-occupied settlements in the West Bank.

These comments were seen as pro forma on the eve of Israel's 60th anniversary celebration which will be attended by President George W. Bush.

The reasons for Palestinian pessimism are varied and vast and the recent record speaks for itself. All that Israel under Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has done so far is dismantle one, yes one, outpost called Amona in February 2006.

But, on the other hand, Israel has this month ordered the demolition of a Palestinian village of Al Aqabah in the Jordan River Valley - "the mosque, medical centre, roads, all the homes and a kindergarten serving more than 130 children" - because it lacked a building permit.

"This is a mockery of law and justice," complained The Rebuilding Alliance, an American nonprofit organisation which helped the village rebuild its kindergarten. It meanwhile has called on Americans to write their congressman to help save the village. (www.RebuildingAlliance.org).

Israel has also prevented Palestinian Christian children from travelling to Israeli-occupied Jerusalem this month for this year's annual "Children's Journey to Jerusalem" which coincided with the Greek Orthodox Easter.

The Washington-based Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF) said Israel, unexpectedly, announced for the first time that children, aged 13 and under, would require permits to enter the Holy City.

Although the applications were ready three weeks before the set date, the Israeli authorities told HCEF that "there was not enough time to consider the applications".

As a matter of fact, Israel's historical record is much worse. Moshe Dayan, the late Israeli defence minister, had admitted in April 1969 that "there is not one single place built in this country (Israel) that did not have a former Arab population".

In this respect, the case of two Palestinian villages in northern Israel, mostly inhabited by Palestinian Christians, called Iqrit and Kafr Birim, is legendary.

In the 1948 war that created Israel, "some three-quarters of a million Palestinian refugees, over half of them villagers, took up the road for exile".

While the plight of these were covered by several UN resolutions (calling for their "right to return"), "far less attention has been paid to the physical destruction of the world they inhabited". (For a documentary record of those 438 occupied and depopulated Palestinian villages see "All that Remains," edited by Walid Khalidi).

This is the reason Palestinians refer to Israel's founding as the Big Catastrophe (Al Nakba), recalling Israel's expulsion of Palestinians and confiscation of Arab land, including "80 per cent of the lands" of Palestinian/Israeli citizens who never left their homes.

The total number of refugees who went into exile "constituted 54 per cent of the total Palestinian population in Mandatory Palestine", but many who remained behind, in Iqrit and Kafr Birim, were displaced internally.

Evacuated

The inhabitants of Iqrit, which is very close to the Lebanese border, thought they could stay in their village. But a week after their surrender they were summarily evacuated by force reportedly to allow the Israeli troops to continue their mopping up operations in the region.

They were, however, promised that they would return after a fortnight but these promises were never honoured and they continue to live to this day in nearby villages. Kafr Birim experienced the same treatment as many others in that region, falling prey to the "principle of an Arab-less border strip".

Three years later and on Christmas Eve, some of Iqrit's elders were taken by the Israeli army to a nearby hill to watch the demolition of the old stone houses in their village - a cruel step that was repeated elsewhere, presumably because of security concerns.

The exception was the village's Greek Catholic church, the graveyard and a few Roman ruins. Kafr Birim's church and its bell tower were also spared.

The Palestinians resorted to the Israeli courts and have won several favourable opinions from the Israeli Supreme Court that allowed them to return to their village but these rulings were never implemented.

However, the villagers and their descendants managed to use the church, for their weddings and the cemetery where their deceased are still buried. On the first Saturday of every month, a priest comes to Iqrit and holds mass there at St Mary's Church.

When Israelis celebrate their anniversary this week, they may remember that their fellow citizens from Iqrit and Kafr Birim are denied re-establishing their communities.

But if nothing else, the people of Iqrit and Kafr Birim are a testament to "enduring Palestinian desire to remain in touch with life pre-1948, whatever the obstacles", as a BBC reporter noted recently. That also explains why Palestinians are about to finally lose total faith in UN resolutions and in the promises of some world leaders.

George Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com.