The Forum · 12 October 1972

CP-1972-002

The village

Arabs Seek Recovery of Town Taken by Israelis 24 Years Ago

By Marcus Eliason, The Associated Press, Berem, Israel

Transcribed from the clipping

“BEREM, Israel (AP)—Twenty-four years ago, with war raging in the Middle East, an Israeli army officer drove into this Arab village and ordered its 800 inhabitants to leave. He promised they could return ‘in a short time,’ after the Israelis had cleared the nearby border with Lebanon of mines and enemy pockets. The Arabs claim the officer said 15 days. But when the villagers tried to return to Berem they were blocked by Israeli troops. They appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court, which ordered their return home on the grounds no formal expulsion order had been issued. The army hurriedly wrote out the orders and dodged the court ruling. Then, in 1955, the Israel Defense Forces blew up every house in the village… Berem—along with the villagers of neighboring Iqrit, who suffered the same fate—appears to be a replay of the murky, time-worn controversy over what really happened in 1948: were the Arabs expelled by the Israelis to make way for the Jewish state, or did the indigenous Arabs obey the orders of their leaders to evacuate for the invading Arab armies? The Israelis have said the Arabs in 1948 abandoned their homes when they ran away from the fighting. The Arabs claimed they were ordered out by the Israelis who feared a large Arab population inside the burgeoning Jewish state… ‘We have owned this land for 600 years,’ said Riad Suliman, a 24-year-old student. ‘We would not give it up any more than the Jews give up Israel. The fact that only six out of 90 families from Berem accepted compensation speaks for itself.’”

Photograph caption

“Berem, near Lebanese border, today is heap of rubble.” (AP Wirephoto)

Context added by this archive

A photograph of the site. Filed with the Berem reporting of the same fortnight; whether it is the same wire package has not been established.

Cite this item

"The village," The Forum, 12 October 1972. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1972-002. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1972-002

Elsewhere in the archive

• Berem Arabs Demanding To Return to Former HomePueblo Chieftain · 5 October 1972 · the same year