Mi'ar

Mi'ar
Mi'ar
Arabic	ميعار
District	Acre
Coordinates	32°52′27.26″N 35°14′46.59″E / 32.8742389°N 35.246275°E / 32.8742389; 35.246275Coordinates: 32°52′27.26″N 35°14′46.59″E / 32.8742389°N 35.246275°E / 32.8742389; 35.246275
Population	770[1] (1944)
Area	10,788[1] dunums
Date of depopulation	15-18 July 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities	Segev, Ya'ad, Manof

Mi'ar Arabic: ميعار‎ (known to the Crusaders as Myary) was a Palestinian village located 17.5 kilometers east of Acre, depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

History

Mi'ar contained the archaeological remains of buildings, fragments of columns, olive presses, and cisterns.^[2]

In 1596, Mi'ar was part of the Ottoman Empire, nahiya (subdistrict) of Akka under the Liwa of Safad, with a population of 55. It paid taxes on wheat and barley, fruit, as well as on goats and beehives.^[3]

In the late nineteenth century, the village of Mi'ar was described as a large village situated on high ground that was rough and uncultivated. The villagers, whose number was estimated to be 1500 (in 1859), cultivated some 30 faddans.^[4] An elementary school was founded by the Ottomans in 1888, however, it closed its doors in the final years of the Empire.^[2]

During the Arab Revolt in October 1938, the village was entirely destroyed by the British army for its alleged support of the rebels.^[5]

All the villagers were Muslim. In 1944/45 a total of 2,878 dunam of village land was used for cereals, while 113 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.^[2][6]

1948 War and aftermath

On 20 June 1948 Israeli soldiers entered the village of Mi'ar and shot indiscriminately against the villagers while they were working in their fields. According to Ilan Pappé, when the Israeli soldiers got tired of their killing spree, they began destroying the houses. 40 villagers were killed. One witness was a then 17 year old boy, the later writer Muhammad Ali Taha. The villagers later returned to Mi'ar and continued living there until the Israeli troops re-occupied it in mid-July 1948 and expelled them for good.^[7]

Its 893 inhabitants fled an attack by the Israeli Sheva Brigade, part of the second stage of Operation Dekel, on 15 July 1948, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.^[8][9]

The Jewish localities of Segev, Ya'ad and Manof currently lie upon the former village's lands. According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, the village in 1992 was: "Some truncated stone walls, simple graves, and fig and olive trees remain on the site, which is covered by cypress trees. The area has been turned into recreational and picnic grounds."^[2]

See also

• List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Hadawi, 1970, p.40
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Khalidi, 1992, p.26.
3. ^ Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter and Kamal Abdulfattah (1977), Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. p. 193. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 26
4. ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP, Vol. I, p.271. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 26
5. ^ Hughes, M. (2009) The banality of brutality: British armed forces and the repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–39, English Historical Review Vol. CXXIV No. 507, 314–354.
6. ^ Hadawi, 1990, p.81
7. ^ Pappé, 2006, p. 150
8. ^ Morris, Benny, (second edition 2004 third printing 2006) The Birth Of The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-00967-7 p 421
9. ^ "Welcome to Mi'ar". Palestine Remembered. http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Mi'ar/index.html. Retrieved 2007-12-04. 

Bibliography

• Conder, Claude Reignier and H.H. Kitchener (1881): The Survey of Western Palestine: memoirs of the topography, orography, hydrography, and archaeology. London:Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. vol 1
• Hadawi, Sami (1970), Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html 
• Khalidi, Walid (1992), All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, ISBN 0887282245 
• Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521009676. http://books.google.com/?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=benny+morris&q. 
• Pappé, Ilan (2006): The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, London and New York: Oneworld, ISBN 1851684670

External links

• Welcome to Mi'ar
• Miar, at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
• Mi3ar photos from Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh
• All About... Mi'ar, from Zochrot
• Visit to Mi’ar 12/4 2002, by Norma Musih, Zochrot
• Opposition to building plan in Mi’ar, Zochrot