Kafr Bir'im

Infobox Former Arab villages in Palestine
name=Kafr Bir'im


imgsize=
caption=
arname=كفر برعم
meaning=
altSp=Kefr Berem
district=sf
population=710
popyear=1945
area=12,250
areakm=12.3
date=early November 1948 [Benny Morris (2004): "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited", ISBN 0521009677, p. XVI, village #38. Also gives cause(s) of depopulation.]
cause=E
curlocl=Bar'am [Benny Morris (2004) p. XXII, settlement #160.]

Kafr Bir'im, also Kefr Berem ( _ar. كفر برعم), was a Melkite Catholic Arab village in the British Mandate of Palestine. The village was in the territory allotted to the Arab state under the 1947 UN Partition Plan (Benvenisti, 2002). According to Benny Morris (1994, p.281), the villagers were outright expelled by the Haganah in November 1948, (together with the villagers of Iqrit, Nabi Rubin, and Tarbikha) "without Cabinet knowledge, debate, or approval" – though, almost inevitably, they received "post facto" Cabinet endorsement." Kafr Bir'im's inhabitants and their descendants are still fighting for the right to return.

Description of village

Kafr Bir'im is located in the Upper Galilee in Israel, 4 kilometers south of the Lebanese border, and 11.5km north west of Safad. The village is about 750 meters above sea level, with the church situated at the highest altitude in the village, at 752m. The present church is built on top of the structures of an ancient church which is believed to have been destroyed in an earthquake in 1837. The population was estimated to be 710 in 1945, consisting of 10 Musilims and 700 Christians. ['"Village Statistics" (British Mandatory Government, 1945).] The village population in 1948 was estimated as 1,050 Arab inhabitants. Today the villagers (Present absentees) and their descendants number about 2,000 people in Israel. In addition, there are villagers and descendants in Lebanon (as some were deported there in November 1948) and in western countries. [ [http://www.birem.org/english/index.html Birem.org] ]

History

Kafr Bir'im was for many centuries a place of Jewish pilgrimage, containing the graves of Barak and Obadiah as well as several rabbis. It also houses the ruins of two ancient synagogues. In the 19th century the village had a population of 160 males, all Maronites and Melkites. [Robinson, Edward. (1856) [http://books.google.com/books?id=IBRiSZ1d0_EC&pg=PA68&dq=Kefr+Bir%27im+Palestine#PPA71,M1 Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions] J. Murray: pp.68-71.]

1948, and after

The town was captured October 31, 1948 by the Haganah during Operation Hiram. The village was located in an area which the Israeli forces wanted, for security reasons, populated primarily by Jews. In November 1948 most of the inhabitants were evacuated by the IDF "temporarily" to the town of Jish further south "until the military operations are over". Archbishop Elias Chacour relates in his autobiography how the IDF in the spring of 1949 rounded up all the men and older boys in the village (including his own father and three eldest brothers), and trucked them to the border with Jordan. There they were let out and ordered to go to Jordan. The soldiers opened fire, aiming just above their heads, meaning to drive them from their homeland for good. However, Chacour's father and brothers managed to make it back three months later.

In 1953 the former inhabitants of Kafr Bir'im pleaded to the Supreme Court of Israel to allow them to return to their village. Early in September 1953, the Supreme Court decided that the authorities had to answer to why the inhabitants were not allowed to return home. The result: on September 16, 1953 the Israeli Air Force and army in a joint operation bombed the village until it was completely destroyed. At the same time it was announced that 1,170 hectares of land belonging to the village had been expropriated by the state.Sabri Jiryis: "Kouetz 307 (27. Aug. 1953): 1419"]

The leader of Melkite Greek Catholics in Israel, Archbishop Georgios Hakim, alerted the Vatican and other Church authorities about what had happened both at Kafr Bir'im and at another Arab Christian village called Iqrit. The Israeli government responded by attempting to settle the matter by paying compensations to the inhabitants. Few accepted. The little success they had was mainly due to archbishop Hakim, who had accepted compensation for the land belonging to the village church. [Sabri Jiryis: Israel Government Yearbook 5725 (1964):32]

In the summer of 1972 the villagers from Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit went back to their villages to repair their churches, and then refused to leave. Their action was supported by archbishop Hakim's successor, Archbishop Joseph Raya. The police had to use force to remove them. The case was discussed by the government, but they refused to allow the return of the villagers, as they feared it would create a precedence. [given by Sabri Jiryis: Haaretz 24 July 1972, Yedihit Aharaonot, 30 June, 1972] Early in August 1972, many Israeli Jews went to Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit to show solidarity with the villagers. Later, on August 13, 1972, a couple thousand people demonstrated together with Archbishop Raya and Elias Chacour in the streets of Jerusalem. (Haaretz 24 August 1972.) [ref. given by Sabri Jiryis, the demonstration is also described in Chacours autobiography]

The Israeli authorities claimed that most of the inhabitants of the village had received compensation for their losses. Former residents countered that they were, at best, compensated for small portions of their holdings. [Sabri Jiryis: compensation for only 91.6 out of 1565.0 acres had been given in Ikrit, in Kafr Bir'im only "negliable" amounts] In 1972, the government rescinded all "closed regions" laws in the country, but then reinstated these laws for the two villages Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit.

This was met with criticism by the opposition parties. In the 1977 election campaign Menachem Begin, then leader of the right-wing Likud party, specifically promised the villagers that they could return home if he was elected. This promise became a great embarrassment to him after he had won, and a decision on the issue was postponed as long as possible. It was left to his agriculture minister to reveal to the public that a special cabinet committee had decided that the villagers of Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit would not be allowed to return. [Jerusalem Post, 18 January, 1979, ref. in Gilmour, p.103]

On March 24, 2000, Pope John Paul II asked Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak to do justice for the uprooted of Kafr Bir'im. [ [http://www.birem.org/english/index.html] ]

Today

References

*Sabri Jiryis: "The Arabs in Israel" 1st American edition 1976 ISBN 0-85345-377-2 (updated from the 1966 ed.) With a foreword by Noam Chomsky. (First English edition; Beirut, Institute for Palestine Studies, 1968). Chapter 4.
*Walid Khalidi (1992): "All that Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948." ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
*Elias Chacour: "Blood Brothers. A Palestinian Struggles for Reconciliation in the Middle East" ISBN 0-8007-9321-8 with Hazard, David, and Baker III, James A., Secretary (Foreword by) 2nd Expanded ed. 2003. (Archbishop of Galilee, born in Kafr Bir'im, the book covers his childhood growing up in the town. (The first six chapters of "Blood Brothers" can be downloaded [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://twelvedaystojerusalem.org/chacour/pdf/BloodBrothers.pdf here (the Nov 08, 2005 link)] .
*David Gilmour: "Dispossessed. The Ordeal of the Palestinians". Sphere books, Great Britain, 1983, pp.102-103
*Benny Morris: 1948 and after; Israel and the Palestinians Oxford, 1994.
*Benvenisti, Meron (2002): "Sacred Landscape: Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948". University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23422-7

See also

*
* Anti-Catholicism
* Internally Displaced Palestinians
* Kfar Bar'am, architectural remains of the 3rd century synagogue

External links and references

*http://www.palestineremembered.com/Safad/Kafr-Bir'im
*http://www.birem.org/
* [http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=81662&contrassID=2&subContrassID=3&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=81662"Justice for Ikrit and Biram"] , Haaretz October 10, 2001
* [http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/index.php?id=156 A visit to Bir’im with the Bir'im children's summer camp] by Miki Levi (31/7/2004)
* [http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/index.php?id=225 The right of return, colored in pink] by Ronit Sela, Bir'im (6/8/2005)
* [http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/index.php?id=626 Visit to Birem Summer Camp] by Eitan Bronstein, (9.8.2007)