The Cincinnati Post · 6 September 1977

CP-1977-033

Letters: Israel’s vanished villages

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Transcribed from the clipping

To the editor of The Post: The series of articles by Polk Laffoon IV about Israel has been, for the most part, informative and objective. But the piece entitled “Golan Heights: Where peace is only a word,” was neither—although Mr. Laffoon is perhaps innocent of any intent to deceive.

While the northern part of Israel beneath the Golan Heights today seems rather desolate, with Qiryat Shemona, Safad, and Rosh Pinna the only sizeable settlements, it was once a livelier place. The change took place in 1948 and after, when the Israeli government began the destruction of hundreds of Arab towns and villages throughout Israel.

El Ja’une, El Khalisa, Dawwara, Ez Zawiya, Saliha, Es Salihiya, Kafr Bir’im, Qadas, En Na’ima and Hunin are some of the Arab towns which once existed in this region which Mr. Laffoon found desolate.

In most cases, everything was leveled and covered over—houses, walls, and even cemeteries, so that no trace remained once the wild flowers and weeds covered the scars in the earth. This was a deliberate effort by the Israeli government to “rewrite” this history of the area.

New Jewish settlers, flowing in from around the world, were not told that they would be living and farming on land evacuated only a few months before by Arabs—who either fled the threat of terrorism or who were later evicted at gunpoint by Israeli soldiers.

History books authorized by the government avoid any mention of the existence of most of these Arab towns, or of official programs leading to their destruction.

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