Summary
The new Jewish city the Israeli government decided in 1954 to build next to Nazareth and began building in 1956 — in Manna’s account the opening move of the post-Nakba Judaization of the Galilee, built on confiscated Arab land to stifle the development of the only Palestinian city that escaped destruction in 1948 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.281, 284, 294).
Details
- Geremy Forman, who examined the 1954 Nazareth municipal elections in detail, saw no direct connection between those elections and the government’s decision that same year to build a new Jewish city next to Nazareth named Nazareth Elit (Upper Nazareth) (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.281).
- During the 1956 period Maki intensified its criticism of the government’s decision to reserve the first neighbourhood (shikun) of the new Upper Nazareth exclusively for Jews; the Judaization of the Galilee, or construction for Jews only on confiscated Arab lands, led many to compare Israel with South Africa, and al-Ittihad wrote: “Nazareth will not become South Africa.” (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.283-284).
- In 1956 the government began implementing a policy of Judaizing the Galilee by establishing Upper Nazareth, after plundering the land of the refugees and the forced migrants inside Nazareth, and began confiscating what was left of Arab lands in the Galilee to sever the geographic connections among Arab villages (see Judaization) (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.294).