Al-Tantura

Infobox Former Arab villages in Palestine
name=al-Tantura

---

imgsize=250
caption=al-Tantura in 1935 during the British Mandate
arname=الطنطورة
meaning=
altSp=Tantura
district=hf
population=1,490
popyear=1945
area=14,250
areakm=14.3
date=23 May 1948 [Benny Morris (2004): "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited", ISBN 0521009677, p. xvi, village #176. Also gives Expulsion as the cause of depopulation.]
cause=E
curlocl= Nahsholim, [Morris (2004): settlement #9,Dor [Morris (2004): settlement #186,]

al-Tantura ( _ar. الطنطورة, lit. "The Peak") [Meron Benvenisti 2000 p.50] was a Palestinian Arab fishing village located 8 kilometers northwest of Zikhron Ya'akov [http://www.bashanfoundation.org/finalhistory2.html Bashan Foundation.org] ] and 28 kilometers south of Haifa and 17 kilometers North of Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast of Israel.

In 1922, al-Tantura had a population of 722 inhabitants, rising to 953 according to the British Mandate census in 1931. In Sami Hadawi's land and population survey in 1945, the town had a population 1,490 and a total land area of 14,250 dunams. [ [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20I/Haifa/Page-049.jpgHaifa District Stats] from [http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine] (1970) Hadawi, Sami. The Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center]

There are two Islamic holy sites in the village's ruins, including a maqam or shrine dedicated to an Abd ar-Rahman Sa'd ad-Din. [Abu-Sitta, Salman H. (2007) p.51]

History

Antiquity

al-Tantura was built on the ruins of an ancient city known by the Ancient Greeks and Phoenicians as "Dor." [ [http://www.lebanonlinks.com/batroun/history_of_phoenicia_chapter4.asp Lebanon Links.com] ] It was the most southern settlement of the Phoenicians on the coast of Syria. Tradition says that it was a Sidonian colony. It furnished an abundance of the shell-fish so valuable for the manufacture of the Tyrian purple. Dor is first mentioned in the Egyptian Story of Wenamun, as a port ruled by the Tjeker prince Beder, where Wenamun (a priest of Amun at Karnak) stopped on his way to Byblos and was robbed. [http://dor.huji.ac.il/periods_IR.html Tel Dor excavation project] The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and University of Haifa] According to the Book of Joshua, Dor was an ancient royal city of the Canaanites commanding the heights of Dor whose king became an ally of Jabin of Hazor in the conflict with Joshua. [Jos 11:1, Jos 11:2; Jos 12:23] Dor is also mentioned in the Book of Judges as a Canaanite city whose inhabitants were put to 'taskwork' when the area was allotted to the tribe of Manasseh. [Judges 1:27-28] In the Book of Kings we are told that Dor was incorporated into David's Israelite kingdom. In the 10th century BCE, it became the capital of the Heights of Dor under Solomon, and was governed by his son-in-law, Ben-abinadab as one of Solomon's commissariat districts [I Kings 4:11] . [ [http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/ebd/ebd106.htm Bible index: D] ]

Josephus Flavius in his "Antiquities" (14:333) describes Dor as an unsatisfactory port where goods had to be transported by lighters from ships at sea. Dora was the city where Antiochus, ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire with the aid of Simon Maccabaeus, laid siege to the usurper Trypho. [Josephus, The Jewish War 1:52] During Pompey's invasion of Judea Dora was razed, along with all the coastal towns, only to be rebuilt under Gabinius's direction. [Josephus, The Jewish War 1:155-1:170]

Off the coast of Dor, shipwrecks have been found from various periods. Underwater exploration of a Byzantine wreck discovered the remains of a medium-size boat constructed with iron nails. Based on coins recovered from the site, the boat dates to 665 CE, a decade after the Muslim conquest. Artifacts include several objects testifying to the practice of light-fishing. [ [http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1095-9270.2007.00146.x Blackwell Synergy .com] ] The site contains remnants of a Byzantine basilica that was the seat of a Bishopric. Later, the Knights Templar built a Crusader fort named after the fief-holders de Merle (Khirbet el-Burj). [ [http://www.sitesandphotos.com/news.php?actions=details&id=22 sites Underwater Excavations at Dor, Israel, To Be Resumed] Sites and Photos.]

18th century

For years, muskets and cannon balls retrieved from the sea around Tantura were assumed to have found their way to the seabed from shipwrecks. Two archaeologists, Wachsmann and Rayeh, studied the Atlas of Jacotin, published in 1820, which portrayed the regions through which Napoleon's troops had marched, and concluded that Tantura was the spot where Napoleon camped on May 21, 1799. [ [http://www.napoleon-series.org/ins/scholarship98/c_palestine.html Napoleon-series] ]

19th century

The British traveler James Silk Buckingham, writing in 1821, described al-Tantura as a small village with a small port and a "khan" (caravanserai). [Buckingham, James Silk (1821):" [http://books.google.com/books?id=irUbAAAAMAAJ Travels in Palestine] " p. 121-123. Quoted in Khalidi (1992), p.193, 194] Mary Rogers, the sister of the British vice-consul in Haifa, reported that in 1855 there were thirty to forty houses in the village, and that cattle and goats were the chief wealth of al-Tantura. [Rogers, Mary Eliza (1862): " [http://books.google.com/books?id=KG09qepFmJAC Domestic Life in Palestine] " Reprint 1989, p. 73-74. Quoted in Khalidi (1992), p. 194]

In 1859 William McClure Thomson [William McClure Thomson, " [http://books.google.com/books?id=S44XAAAAYAAJ&q=tantura#search The Land And The Book: Or, Biblical Illuastrations Drawn From The Manners And Customs, The Scenes And Scenery Of The Holy Land] ". 1859 p.498] described Tantura/Dor in his travelogue:-

'Tantura merits very little attention. It is a sad and sickly hamlet of wretched huts on a naked sea-beach, with a marshy flat between it and the base of the eastern hills. The sheikh’s residence and the public menzûl for travellers are the only respectable houses, Dor never could have been a large city, for there are no remains. The artificial tell, with a fragment of the Kùsr standing like a column upon it, was probably the most ancient site. In front of the present village and five small islets, by the aid of which an artificial harbour could easily be constructed. The entrance to which would be by the inlet at the foot of the Kùsr; and should “Dor and her towns” ever rise again into wealth and importance such a harbour will assuredly be made'.

Sometime around 1880, Jewish pioneers from Zikhron Ya'akov bought 30 hectares of land in a marsh-ridden part of Tantura (the site of Kibbutz Nahsholim after the establishment of the State of Israel). The land was transferred to Baron Edmond de Rothschild. After unsuccessful farming attempts by a group of young Romanian Jews, the land was leased to local Arabs.In 1891, Baron Rothschild financed the establishment of a bottle factory there, [ Encyclopedia Judaica, "Dor," p. 172, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972] hoping to use the fine sand on the shore to manufacture glass bottles for the fledging wine industry in Zikhron Ya'akov.A building was constructed, a French glass specialist was brought in, dozens of workers were hired and three ships were purchased to transport raw material and bottles. However, the factory was abandoned in 1895 after a string of failures.

In the late nineteenth century al-Tantura was described as a village on the coast, with a harbour located to the north, and a square, stone building used as a guest house for travellers (probably the "khan" referred to by Buckingham). The village had an estimated 1,200 residents who cultivated 25 "faddans", and conducted a small trade with Jaffa. [Conder, Claude Reignier and H. H. Kitchener (1881): "The Survey of Western Palestine." London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. II:3, Quoted in Khalidi (1992), p. 194]

20th century, until 1948

Al-Tantura had a boys elementary school, built around 1889, and another school for girls, founded in 1937-38. The village economy was based on fishing and agriculture. During the British Mandate the fish catch increased steadily, from 6 tons in 1928 to 1,622 tons in 1944. The major agricultural products were grain, vegetables, and fruit. In 1944/45 a total of 26 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas and 6,593 dunums were allocated to cereals; 287 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 270 dunums were for olives. [Khalidi (1992), p. 194]

The expulsion of al-Tantura residents in 1948

In 1948 al-Tantura was within the area designated by the United Nations in the Partition Plan for the Jewish State. The village stood on a low limestone hill overlooking the shoreline of two small bays.Meron Benvenisti (2000) p.135] The water was supplied from a well in the eastern part of the village. The al-Bab gate was in the southeast of the village. The Roman ruins were on the coast to the north with the hill of Umm Rashid to the south Some of the inhabitants were civil servants, working as policemen, custom officials and clerks at the Haifa Magistrates court. A paved road led to Haifa Highway. The village was one of the most developed in the region. Some residents of Tantura had been involved in the Arab Revolt, and three were killed in a skirmish with the British near the village. At the beginning of the 1948 Palestine War, the wealthier families fled to the safety of Haifa. Approximately 1,200 remained in the village, continuing to tend their fields, orchards, and ply their trade as fishermen.

Command decisions

A decision was made on May 9, 1948 to "expel or subdue" the villages of Kafr Saba, al-Tira, Qaqun, Qalansuwa and Tantura. [Benny Morris (2004) p.246; Summary meeting of the Arab Affairs Advisor in Netanya 9 May 1948 IDF 6127/49//109] On the 11 May 1948 Ben-Gurion convened a meeting that Ilan Pappé describes as a "Consultancy". The decision taken at the meeting was confirmed in a letter to commanders of the Haganah Brigades telling them that the Arab legion's offensive should not distract their troops from the principal tasks, of which, according to an entry in Ben-Gurion's diary:

‘the cleansing of Palestine remained the prime objective of Plan Dalet' [Ilan Pappé (2006) p. 128. Pappé gives it as a direct quote from Ben-Gurion's Diary entry of the 11th May, footnote 2 to chapter 6. Ben-Gurion uses the noun "bi'ur" which means either 'cleansing' the leaven in Passover or 'root out, eliminate'.]

According to 'Tiroshi' (Eitan), [Benny Morris (2006) p. 299, Subject: village of Tantura 6 May 1948 in Haganah Archives Doc. 105/54 aleph] the residents of Tantura were ready to surrender in early May but not to relinquish their arms. One Jewish Intelligence specialist on Arab affairs asked if the Haganah were really interested in Tantura's surrender. [Benny Morris (2006) p. 247] The Alexandroni Brigade launched its attack on Tantura under cover of darkness with no prior expression of readiness to suspend the operation in exchange for a surrender.

Operation Namal

The British were in control of the Haifa port area until April 23, 1948. [ [http://domino.un.org/pdfs/AAC21UK120.pdf UN Doc A/AC.21/UK/120 of 22/04/1948] UN Palestine Commission - Position in Haifa - Letter from United Kingdom] The rest of the city fell at the hands of the Carmeli Brigade of the Haganah commanded by Moshe Carmel in (Operation Misparayim). After the fall of Haifa some of the villages on the slopes of Mount Carmel became involved in attacks on Jewish traffic on the main road to Haifa. Consequently the attention of the commanders of the Alexandroni Brigade was turned to reducing the Mount Carmel pocket. Tantura was chosen as the starting point of the 'Coastal Clearing Operation' to be carried out by this Haganah force. The Operation, codenamed Namal, took place on the night of May 22-23. [ [http://www.zionism-israel.com/his/Israel_war_independence_1948_timeline.htm Zionism-Israel.com] ] That night, Tantura was attacked and occupied by the Brigade's 33rd battalion.

The night attack started with heavy machine gun fire and was followed by the infantry attack from all landwards sides with an Israeli naval vessel blocking off any chance of escape to the sea and by 0800hrs on the 23 May the battle was over. The village had offered little resistance. [Benny Morris (2004) p 247]

An unsigned Haganah report in the name of the deputy OC 'A' company spoke of dozens of villagers killed and 500 taken prisoner (300 adult males and 200 women and children). [Benny Morris (2004) p. 247 unsigned short report on Tantura Operation, IDFA 922/75//949, and ya’akov B.’, in the name of the deputy OC ‘A’ company ‘Report on Operation Namal’ 26 May 1948, IDFA 6647/49//13.]

Aftermath

Most of the villagers fled to the nearby town of Fureidis and territory controlled by the Arab League in the Triangle region near to what was to become the Green Line. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/Haifa/al-Tantura/ Haifa District: Al-Tantura Town Statistics and Facts] Palestine Remembered] Women prisoners were taken to Fureidis. On May 31, 1948, Bechor Shitrit, the Minister of Minority Affairs of the provisional Government of Israel, sought permission to expel the women previously evicted from Tantura, from Fureidis on the grounds of overcrowding, lack of sanitation and the risk of information being passed to other unconquered villages. [Benny Morris (2004). Shitrit to Ben-Gurion 31 May 1948 ISA MAM 302/48.]

A Ministry official, Ya’akov Epstein of Zikhron Ya'akov, who submitted a report after visiting Tantura shortly after the operation, reported seeing bodies 'in the (village) outskirts, in the streets, in the alleys, in village houses', but said nothing of a massacre. In 1998, Yihiya Yihiya published a book on Tantura recording the names of 52 dead.Benny Morris (2004) p 299-301 ]

The occupation of the village was followed by looting. Some of the items recovered by the Haganah included 'one carpet, one gramophone ... one basket with cucumbers .... one goat'. The area also became a health hazard, given the number of human and animal corpses. [Benny Morris (2004) p. 247.]

The male prisoners of war were held on the beach before being transferred to Zichron Ya’akov police station [http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=22&x_article=991 CAMERA.org] ] and put into labour battalions.

In 1964 the IDF released an official history of "The Alexandroni Brigade in the War of Independence" in which 11 pages were devoted to al-Tantura; it has no mention of any expulsion. However by 2004 Alexandroni veterans acknowledge the forced expulsion.

Nahsholim and Dor

Kibbutz Nahsholim and moshav Dor were built on land on the outskirts of al-Tantura. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/Haifa/al-Tantura/ Haifa District: Al-Tantura Town Statistics and Facts] Palestine Remembered]

As the village was situated on the ancient tel of Dora, Jewish National Fund names committee restored the Hebraic name Dor. [Meron Benvenisti (2000) pp.19-25] The moshav settlers initially moved into the abandoned Arab houses but the housing was found to be unsuitable. The moshav moved out of al-Tantura and the old Arab village was bulldozed. Moshav Dor built more suitable housing close to al-Tantura. Former residents of al-Tantura claim that when bulldozers tried to knock down the local saint's tomb of Sheikh al-Majrami, the blades on the bulldozers broke. [Meron Benvenisti (2000) p.198]

Nahsholim and Dor residents are opposed to an exhumation of a possible mass grave site.

Massacre controversy

Israeli journalist Amir Gilat brought the subject of an alleged massacre to the attention of the public in an article based on Theodore Katz's master's thesis for the University of Haifa on "The Exodus of the Arabs from the Villages at the foot of Mount Carmel", and on interviews that Amir Gilat carried out. Katz, a 55-year-old Israeli graduate student, alleged that Israeli forces had killed 240 Arab civilians from the village of Tantura during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. Katz himself did not use the word massacre, although other scholars were quick to use this label. [http://ipsnewsite.mysite4now.com/enakba/Memoirs/Al%20Wali,%20The%20Tantura%20Massacre.pdf Journal of Palestine Studies] , Vol. 30, No. 3, (Spring, 2001), pp. 5-18: Al Wali The Tantura Massacre with eye witness accounts included from; Muhammad Abu Hana, Muhammad Ibrahim Abu Amr, Amina al-Masri, Farid Taha Salam, Musa 'Abn al-Fattah al-Khatib, 'Adil Muhammad al-'Ammuri, Mahmud Nimr Abd al-Mu'ti, Yusuf Salam, Muhammad Kamil al-Dassuki, Abn al-Razzaq Nasr, Yusra Abu Hana, Wurud Sa'id Salam and Sabira Abu Hana] [http://www.ncsu.edu/univ_relations/news_services/dailyclips/0502/051502clips.htm NC State University News] Clips for May 15, 2002] The Alexandroni veterans protested and Amir Gilat wrote a follow-up piece where the Alexandroni veterans all denied that a massacre had occurred. However professor Kasher accused the Alexandroni veterans of "War Crimes".

Katz had originally received a grade of 97%. According to Meyrav Wurmser, Katz's claims were wholly based on oral testimony, some of which was falsified (Benny Morris uses the term "inaccurate") [Benny Morris (2004) p 300] in 14 different places. [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=99&R=EB972A018 Made-Up Massacre: The Tantura affair, in which post-Zionist Israel libels its own past] Meyrav Wurmser. News Corporation Weekly Standard. 2001-09-10.] Katz's presentation of the facts was disputed by Israeli historians such as Benny Morris [http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/04-02-06morris-the-jerusalem-report-tantura.pdf Jerusalem Report] The Tantura ‘Massacre’ Affair By Benny Morris 4 February 2004, see also Benny Morris (2004) p. 299-301] and Yoav Gelber [ [http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/ Katz Directory] Documents gathered by the Censor on the Tantura Affairs quoted in Yoav Gelber, "Palestine 1948", 2006.] as well as veterans of the Alexandroni Brigade. Katz was sued for libel. After two days’ cross-examination in court, Katz signed a statement, retracted 12 hours later, saying:

"After checking and re-checking the evidence," it read, "it is clear to me now, beyond any doubt, that there is no basis whatsoever for the allegation that the Alexandroni Brigade, or any other fighting unit of the Jewish forces, committed killing of people in Tantura after the village surrendered."

In the wake of these findings, Haifa University suspended Katz's degree and Katz was invited to revise the thesis. Katz revised and reiterated the massacre claims. The paper was sent out to five external examiners, a majority (3:2) of whom failed it. [ [http://www.isranet.org/databank/antisemitism-AntiIsrael_on_Campus.htm#Oz-Salzberger Fania Oz-Salzberger] Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2005, ] Katz was subsequently awarded a "non-research" MA. [ [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=167664 "His colleagues call him a traitor"] Tom Segev for "Haaretz" (retrieved February 4 2007)] [http://www.counterpunch.org/amit05112005.html "The Collapse of Academic Freedom in Israel: Tantura, Teddy Katz and Haifa University"] Zalman Amit (retrieved February 4 2007)] Katz’s mentor Ilan Pappé continues to stand by Katz and his thesis. [http://ipsnewsite.mysite4now.com/enakba/history/Pappe,%20The%20Tantura%20Case%20in%20Israel.pdf Journal of Palestine Studies] , Vol. 30, No. 3, (Spring, 2001), pp. 19-39: The Tantura Case in Israel: The Katz Research and Trial by Ilan Pappe; With eye witness accounts from: Dan Vitkon, Yosef Graf, Salih 'Abn al-Rahman, Tuvia Lishansky Mordechai Sokoler, Ali 'Abd al-Rahman Dekansh, Najiah Abu Amr, Fawsi Mahmoud Tanj, Mustafa Masri] [Ilan Pappé, (2006); pp 113, 127,133, 155, 165, 183, 197, 203, 210, 211.] Tom Segev, Me'ir Pa'il, Ilan Pappe, Benny Morris have also argued that there may be some truth in what Katz described. Specifically, Zalman Amit, founding member of the Alliance of Concerned Jews of Canada and Professor Emeritus in Psychology at Concordia Univeersity, writes that, in interview in the Jerusalem Report, Morris contended that while he is not sure whether what happened in Tantura was actually a massacre, he was now convinced that atrocities, rapes and killings were committed by the troops in Tantura.

Morris says that eyewitness statements made long after the event are no substitute for contemporaneous documentary evidence. However, Katz's interviews of 20 Israelis and 20 Palestinians (some of whom were 5-7 years old in 1948)Fact|date=June 2008 have led some scholarswho to speculate that the Israeli narrative is problematic. However Benny Morris does record that there was an instance of a rape of a woman in the village and that there is evidence that the Alexandroni troops executed POWs; also some looting based on a report in which the commander uses the word "khabala" (vandalism/sabotage). Morris wonders if this might be a euphemism for a massacre. [ [http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:aGv0VW4lDroJ:www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml%3FitemNo%3D380986%26contrassID%3D2+tantura+morris&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4 Ha’aretz] Google cache: Survival of the Fittest by Ari Shavit]

During the trial in December 2000, it emerged that Katz's claim that Abu Fahmi, one of the witnesses, had told him the "army rounded up the villagers, lined them up against a wall and shot them", was incorrect. The court ordered Katz to hand over the tapes of his interviews; no such statement was found. On the contrary, Abu Fahmi stated repeatedly that "we did not see them killing after we raised our hands". According to Morris, although Morris supports the contention that there was over-enthusiastic killing. Morris considers it a telling fact that "no residents went on record in 1948 or any time before the 1990s to claim there had been a massacre." [Benny Morris(2004) p 300] It is not mentioned by Walid Khalidi.Dubious|Walid Khalidi|date=June 2008 Yet Morris passes up that Walid Khalidi did mention a massacre earlier. A former resident of the village Mahmoud al Yihiya Yihiya in August 1998 published a book entitled Al Tantura in which the battle is described and named 52 dead of the village and yet did not describe it as a massacre. [Benny Morris (2004) p 301]

Proposals in 2004 to exhume bodies from a site believed to be a mass grave never materialized. As Nahsholim and Dor residents are opposed to an exhumation, an exhumation that is supported by Katz, the Tantura refugees and the Alexandroni veterans. The Alexandroni veterans contend that the grave holds only 70-75 bodies while Katz contends that 200-260 bodies lay under the car park.

ee also

*List of massacres committed prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
*List of massacres committed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
*List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict

Footnotes

Bibliography

*Abu-Sitta, Salman H. (2007): "The Return Journey, A Guide to the Depopulated and Present Palestinian Towns and Villages and Holy Sites" Palestine Land Society: Stratford, London. ISBN 0-9549034-1-2
*Benvenisti, Meron. (2000): "Sacred Landscape; The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948". University of Californian Press ISBN 0-520-23422-7
*Khalidi, Walid (1992): "All That Remains", Washington D.C., Institute for Palestine Studies, ISBN 0887282245
*Morris, Benny (2004): "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited", Cambridge University press ISBN 0-521-00967-7
*Pappé, Ilan (2006): "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine." Oneworld Publication Limited. ISBN 13: 978-1-85168-467-0

External links

* [http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/04-02-06morris-the-jerusalem-report-tantura.pdf Benny Morris on Katz controversy]
* [http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/05-12-14gelber-palestine-1948-appendix-III-the-tantura-blood-libel-english.pdf Yoav Gelber, "Palestine 1948"] about Tantura events.
* [http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/ Documents gathered by the Censor on Tantura Affairs] quoted in Yoav Gelber, "Palestine 1948", 2006.
* [http://ipsnewsite.mysite4now.com/enakba/Memoirs/Al%20Wali,%20The%20Tantura%20Massacre.pdf Journal of Palestine Studies] , Vol. 30, No. 3, (Spring, 2001), pp. 5-18: Al Wali The Tantura Massacre
* [http://ipsnewsite.mysite4now.com/enakba/history/Pappe,%20The%20Tantura%20Case%20in%20Israel.pdf Journal of Palestine Studies] , Vol. 30, No. 3, (Spring, 2001), pp. 19-39: The Tantura Case in Israel: The Katz Research and Trial by Ilan Pappe
* [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7itq6zYtSJwC&printsec=frontcover&client=firefox-a&sig=F9VTdHpEomGXFqWqZXWs1Z2eKx0 Google Books] Benvenisti, Meron. (2000) “Sacred Landscape; The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948”. University of Californian Press ISBN 0-520-23422-7 Limited preview
* [http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/virtualheritage/project1.html Underwater archeology at Tantura Lagoon]
* [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hB9qLSSMowQC&printsec=frontcover&client=firefox-a&sig=1tVXsmC1T7RMoDeiTjyKQa9uPCs Google Books] William McClure Thomson 1859 "The Land And The Book: Or, Biblical Illuastrations Drawn From The Manners And Customs, The Scenes And Scenery Of The Holy Land."
* [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eZlPPNfRuWsC&printsec=frontcover&lr=&client=firefox-a&sig=zqwcDPkMsq0xRt1-GfT5gzeTglw#PPP13,M1 Google Books] Yoav Gelber 1997 "Jewish-Transjordanian Relations, 1921-48" Routledge ISBN 071464675X
* [http://www.insight-info.com/articles/item.aspx?i=1186 The Tantura Massacre one month after the Dair Yasin Massacre]