Mi'ar ميعار | |
|---|---|
Village | |
 A Palestinian wedding celebration in Mi'ar in 1937 | |
| Etymology: From personal name[1] | |
.jpg) 1870s map.jpg) 1940s map.jpg) modern map.jpg) 1940s with modern overlay mapA series of historical maps of the area around Mi'ar | |
  Mi'ar Location withinMandatory Palestine | |
| Coordinates:32°52′27″N35°14′47″E / 32.87417°N 35.24639°E /32.87417; 35.24639 | |
| Palestine grid | 173/253 |
| Geopolitical entity | Mandatory Palestine |
| Subdistrict | Acre |
| Date of depopulation | 15–18 July 1948 |
| Area | |
• Total | 10,788dunams (10.788 km2; 4.165 sq mi) |
| Population (1944) | |
• Total | 770[2][3] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault byYishuv forces |
| Current Localities | Segev,[4]Ya'ad[4]Manof[4] |
Mi'ar (Arabic:ميعار), was aPalestinian village located 17.5 kilometers east ofAcre. Its population in 1945 was 770. TheCrusaders referred to it as "Myary". By the 19th century, duringOttoman rule, it was a largeMuslim village. The village was a center of Palestinian Arab rebel operations during the1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine against British rule and consequently the village was completely dynamited by the British. Mi'ar was later restored, but it was depopulated byIsraeli forces during the1948 Arab-Israeli War. The Jewish communities ofAtzmon,Ya'ad andManof are located on former village land.
Mi'ar contained the archaeological remains of buildings, fragments of columns, olive presses, and cisterns.[4] It was referred to by theCrusaders as "Myary".[4]
Incorporated into theOttoman Empire in 1517 with all ofPalestine, Mi'ar appeared in the 1596tax registers as being in the Akka Nahiya (Subdistrict ofAcre), part of theSafad Sanjak (District of Safed). It had a population 10Muslim households, an estimated 55 persons. The villagers paid fixed tax rate of 25% on wheat and barley, fruit, goats and beehives; a total of 1,235akçe.[5][6]
In the late 1700, the Italian travelerGiovanni Mariti noted that around al-Damun and Mi'ar were two "delightful valleys, ornamented with groves and wild shrubs. The peasants who live in thehamlets around, enjoy a most pleasant situation."[7]
In 1875, French explorerVictor Guérin visited Mi'ar, and noted that it contained "several trunks of columns, three broken capitals, and a certain number old cut stones, coming from some ancient building. I observed also many blocks of ancient appearance disposed round threshing-floors. There are alsocisterns, walls, and caves cut in the rock, which belong to times more or less remote."[8] He found Mi'ar to be inhabited by 500 Muslims.[9]
In 1881, thePEF'sSurvey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as a large village situated on high ground that was rough and uncultivated. The villagers, whose number was estimated to be 1,500 (in 1859), cultivated some 30faddans.[10] A population list from about 1887 showed thatMi'ar had about 480 inhabitants; all Muslims.[11] An elementary school was founded by the Ottomans in 1888, however, it closed its doors in the final years of the Empire.[4]
British forces drove out the Ottomans in 1917, duringWorld War I, and theBritish Mandate of Palestine was established in 1920. In the1922 British census, Mi'ar had a population of 429 Muslims.[12] The population increased to 543, still all Muslim, in the1931 census and the inhabitants lived in a total of 109 houses.[13]
A number of Mi'ar's residents participated in1936–1939 Arab revolt against British rule and mass Jewish immigration in Palestine, and the village became a center of rebel operations in the Galilee.[14] The rebels often opened fired on British troops passing near Mi'ar, damaged roads in the vicinity to render them impassable by the British authorities, cut electrical cables, and planted landmines to hit British vehicles.[14] One of the authorities' controversial methods of suppressing the revolt was the blowing up of houses in a village where there was support for rebels.[14] On 26 October 1938, two British battalions launched a raid against Mi'ar and began dynamiting the large houses of the village.[14] They then demanded Mi'ar'smukhtar (headman) to issue a call to the village's rebels to surrender their rifles or else the dynamiting would continue.[14] No rifles were surrendered and the British resumed their dynamiting of the village's homes.[14] Mi'ar was entirely destroyed for its alleged support of the rebels.[15][16] ANew York Times reporter present during the destruction wrote, "When the [British] troops left, there was little else remaining of this once busy village except a pile of mangled masonry."[14]
The village was rebuilt and in the1945 statistics, the population of Mi'ar grew to 770, all Muslims.[2] A total of 2,878 dunams of village land was used for cereals, while 113 dunams were irrigated or used for orchards.[4][17]
According toIlan Pappé, on 20 June 1948 Israeli troops entered Mi'ar and shot indiscriminately against its residents while they were working in their fields, the village's houses were destroyed and forty inhabitants were killed. One witness to the Israeli attack was the Palestinian writer,Muhammad Ali Taha, then a 17-year-old boy.[18] Mi'ar's residents later returned and continued living in the village until Israeli troops from theSheva Brigade reoccupied it on 15 July 1948, as part of the second stage ofOperation Dekel.[19][18] According toBenny Morris, Mi'ar's 893 inhabitants fled during the Israeli assault,[19] while Pappé asserts that they were expelled.[18]
The Jewish communities of Segev (nowAtzmon),Ya'ad andManof were built on Mi'ar's lands.[4][18] The village's remains in 1992 consisted of "some truncated stone walls, simple graves, and fig and olive trees". The site, which "was largely covered by cypress trees" had become a recreational area.[4]
Many of the refugees of Mi'ar becameinternally displaced Palestinians resettled in nearbyKabul,Sha'ab andArraba.[20] Neighborhoods in each of the villages where Mi'ar refugees and their descendants reside are named Mi'ari after their village of origin.[20]
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