Nazareth

Summary

The only Arab city in pre-1967 Israel, in Pappe’s account: surrendered on 16 July 1948 during Operation Palm Tree, its total eviction was ordered by the operation’s supreme commander and countermanded by Ben-Gurion because the eyes of the Christian world were fixed on the city.

Details

• Nazareth had only 500 Arab Liberation Army volunteers, under Madlul Bek, to protect its indigenous population and the thousands of refugees from nearby villages flooding into it; the attack started on 9 July 1948, the day after the first truce ended (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.203).

• Intercepted telegrams show Madlul Bek and other ALA officers were ordered to stop expulsions by all means, because the Arab governments wanted to prevent more refugees streaming into their countries; when the shelling intensified he encouraged people to leave, and surrendered the city at 10 pm on 16 July (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.203-204).

• The supreme commander of the operation, Moshe Karmil, ordered the total eviction of all who had stayed behind — 16,000, noted Ben-Gurion, 10,000 of whom were Christians — and Ben-Gurion instructed him to retract the order: “Here the world is watching us” (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.204).

• Some people were still expelled or arrested on the first day of the occupation, as intelligence officers searched house to house and seized people on a pre-prepared list of suspects and ‘undesirables’; Palti Sela carried seven notebooks of names of people who could stay, and in 2002 claimed thanks to his efforts 1600 people had been allowed to stay (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.204).

• Today sixty per cent of Nazareth’s residents are internal refugees, expelled villagers from around the city who were spared a second eviction by the decision not to drive out the city’s inhabitants (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.185).

• In Sitta’s register Nazareth is not a main-list (fully depopulated) locality: it appears among the extra, partially depopulated villages named in the Saffuriyya row, in a Nazareth district of only five main-list localities — Indur, Ma’lul, Mujaydil al, Saffuriyya and Subeih al A (The Palestinian Nakba 1948 — The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, PDF p.15).

• In Manna, Nazareth and twenty villages in its district were the largest and strongest demographic bloc among the Remainers registered in November 1948, after their occupation in July 1948 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.31).

• Manna explains Nazareth’s sparing by strict orders not to attack Christian holy places and residents, out of the leadership’s fear of the reaction of Western states and churches; immediately after its occupation a military governor was appointed for the city (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.33, 40).

• In Manna’s Chapter 1 (part 2), Nazareth’s survival is explained by a convergence: its distance from the designated Jewish state’s borders and from Jewish settlement, its holiness to the Christian world and the Vatican, its late occupation, mufti opponents and communists with Jewish ties in the city, and above all Ben-Gurion’s clear order on the eve of occupation prohibiting attacks on residents and holy places, obeyed by the army (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.69-70, 72).

• Manna gives the surrender sequence: after Saffuriyya fell, Arab Rescue Army commander Madlul ‘Abbas withdrew but first asked residents to stay and posted soldiers to stop them following; on Friday 16 July Mayor Yusif al-Fahum consulted the Christian sect heads and notables, and Israeli officers signed an eleven-article Nazareth surrender agreement (16 July 1948) in Shafiq al-Jisr’s house (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.71-72).

• The next day, 17 July, northern commander Moshe Carmel issued an order to expel Nazareth’s entire population; battalion commander Ben Dunkelman refused it, Haim Laskov referred the question to Ben-Gurion, who prohibited the expulsion, and an attempt was made to replace Dunkelman’s battalion with one under Elie Yafeh (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.73).

• Unusually, thousands of refugees who had flocked to Nazareth were allowed to return to their cities and villages — except Tiberias and Bisan, which Israel decided to turn into Jewish cities denuded of their Arab population; only about one thousand Nazarenes left, mostly Muslim notable and merchant families (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.73).

• Manna calls Nazareth a unique precedent — an entire city with its institutions and political and cultural elite intact — and the beginning of the history of the Arabs in Israel; four cabinet ministers visited within a week and military governor Elisha Soltz restored municipal life with local cooperation (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.75-76).

• Chapter 7 and the Epilogue (parts 7-8) follow the city’s politics: Maki won over half its Arab vote in 1949 on ten months of League organising, then fell to 3,146 votes in 1951, less than half the 1949 figure (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.262-263, 273).

• In the municipal elections of 12 April 1954 the authorities used threats and violence from Sayf al-Din al-Zu’bi’s supporters, yet could not form a council coalition without Maki’s six members; former MK Amin Jarjura was elected mayor in July 1954 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.281).

• Amos Elon’s Haaretz reports of early 1951 took the city as the measure of thirty months of Israeli rule: Arabs were disappointed with the promises of equality, and a teacher told him, “I shall not vote, just as prisoners do not vote. Israel has pushed us all into a giant prison.” (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.276).

• The government decided in 1954 to build a Jewish city beside it, Nazareth Elit (Upper Nazareth), begun in 1956 on confiscated land; al-Ittihad answered: “Nazareth will not become South Africa.” (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.281, 283-284, 294).

• On 1 May 1958 the banned communist Labor Day march in Nazareth became unprecedented confrontations — dozens wounded, hundreds arrested — and on 6 July 1958 meetings in Acre and Nazareth announced the Arab Front; the date became symbolic of the Remainers’ open challenge to repression (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.294-295).

Related pages

The Palestinian Nakba 1948 — The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Operation Palm Tree, Saffuriyya, Arab Liberation Army