Summary
A particularly apolitical coastal village south of Haifa, taken on 16 July 1948 in Operation Policeman and disappeared, in Pappe’s account; its Hagana intelligence file described it as ‘moderate’ but carried the detail that later fed a claim that the village was ‘rightfully returned’ to the Jewish people.
Details
- Kfar Lam lay south of Tirat Haifa; it enjoyed about fifteen springs, its houses were hewn stone with cement roofs and wooden arches, and it had no fences or guarding towers, not even in July 1948 (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.194).
- Half its cultivated fields belonged to Ali Bek al-Khalil and his brother from Haifa, who leased the land for a share in the crops; most of its agricultural products were sold in Haifa (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.194).
- Its Haganah intelligence file described the village as ‘moderate’, but in the early 1940s a detail was inserted that hinted at its future fate: the file stated the village had some Samaritans in it who may originally have been Jews, but who in the 1940s had converted to Islam (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.194).
- For Yitzhak Ben-Zvi this showed continuity of Jewish presence along the coast — the thesis of his and Ben-Gurion’s 1918 book claiming the Arab fallahin were descendants of Jewish peasants who stayed after the Roman Exile — but in July 1948 proof of continuity meant not that Kfar Lam’s people could remain as citizens of the Jewish state, only that their village was now ‘rightfully returned’ to the Jewish people (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.194-195).
- Sitta’s register lists Kafr Lam at S 301: depopulation date 15-07-48, Exodus Causes M,C, Arab Population 48 of 394 on 6,838 dunums (The Palestinian Nakba 1948 — The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, PDF p.9). Pappe dates Kafr Lam’s capture to 16 July 1948; the register’s date is one day earlier, and both are kept as printed.
Related pages
The Palestinian Nakba 1948 — The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Tirat Haifa, Village Files, David Ben-Gurion