Summary
Village near Baysan, occupied on 12 May 1948; in Pappe’s account a microcosm of Muslim-Christian coexistence with collective Ottoman-era land-sharing, promised immunity through its collaborating Zu’bi clan but doomed by its 1943 village file, expelled across the Jordan and demolished entire.
Details
- Sirin grew around the burial place (maqam) of Shaykh Ibn Sirin on Jiftiliq lands near Baysan; its houses were of volcanic black stone mixed with clay, its land held collectively by the village as a whole across 9,000 cultivated dunam of 17,000, family size determining each share (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.135).
- Its mukhtar, Mubarak al-Haj al-Zu’bi, a friend of Haifa’s Jewish mayor Shabtai Levi, was sure his 700 villagers would be exempt because the main Zu’bi clan had been promised immunity by the Jewish Agency; a small Christian clan and its teacher, best friend of the mosque’s imam who guarded the village church and monastery, seemed further protection (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.135-136).
- According to the 1943 Hagana village file on Sirin, the rival Abu al-Hija clan doomed it: ten of its members had participated in the 1936 Revolt and kept their ten rifles (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.136).
- The villagers did not put up a fight; the Jewish troops gathered Muslims of both clans and Christians together, ordered them to cross the River Jordan, and demolished the mosque, the church, the monastery and all the houses; today a cactus hedge surrounds the rubble (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.136).
- In the later decision on the Zu’bi villages, Sirin was the most ‘difficult’ case because it had only a few members of the clan; Palti Sela wrote to its family heads suggesting they all leave for Jordan, which they did (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.144).
Related pages
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Baysan, Village Files, Jewish Agency