Musmus
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Village | |
 Aerial photo of Musmus | |
  Musmus  Musmus | |
| Coordinates:32°32′35″N35°09′23″E / 32.54306°N 35.15639°E /32.54306; 35.15639 | |
| Grid position | 164/216PAL |
| Country |  Israel |
| District |  Haifa |
| Council | Ma'ale Iron |
| Named after | Compactly built, or apricot[1] |
| Population (mid-2016[2]) | |
• Total | 4,215 |
Musmus (Arabic:مُصمُص,Hebrew:מוצמוץ /מוסמוס) is anArab village inHaifa District. The village is located in theWadi Ara area of thenorthern Triangle, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) northeast ofUmm al-Fahm. Since 1996, it has been under the jurisdiction of theMa'ale Ironlocal council. The village is divided into five neighborhoods: Abu Shehab, Ighbarieh, Southeast, Mahagna, and Sharqawi. In mid-2016, Musmus' population was 4,215,[2] all of whom wereMuslim.[3]
Most of the villagers belong to the Ighbarieh and Mahagna clans. The village is the birthplace of the Palestinian poetRashid Hussein.Highway 65 passes through the village and splits it into two parts.
There are several theories for the origin of the village's name; some say it is a distortion of the name of the PharaohThutmose II who conquered the land, others say that the name is that of an Egyptian village.[4] According to a local Arab tradition, a trade caravan passed in the area and saw a man dying of thirst. They handed him a bottle of water and told him "mus, mus" ("suck" in Arabic) and saved his life. The man decided to remain in the place and build his home there and call it Musmus, and around his home the village developed.[5]E. H. Palmer thought Musmus came from a personal name, meaning "compactly built", whileEdward Robinson gave the name as Mushmush, meaningapricot.[6]
The village was built on an ancient site from theRoman-Byzantine andearly Muslim periods.[7]
In 1517 the village was incorporated into theOttoman Empire with the rest of Palestine. During the16th and17th centuries, Musmus belonged to theTurabay Emirate (1517-1683), which encompassed also theJezreel Valley,Haifa,Jenin,Beit She'an Valley, northernJabal Nablus,Bilad al-Ruha/Ramot Menashe, and the northern part of theSharon plain.[8][9]
The modern village was established during the 1830s by members of the al-Bashir clan from nearbyUmm al-Fahm.[4] It was one of the oldest settlements of the so-called "Fahmawi Commonwealth" established byHebronite clans belonging toUmm al-Fahm. The Commonwealth consisted of a network of interspersedcommunities connected by ties ofkinship, and socially, economically and politically affiliated with Umm al Fahm. The Commonwealth dominated vast sections ofBilad al-Ruha/Ramot Menashe,Wadi 'Ara andMarj Ibn 'Amir/Jezreel Valley during that time.[10]
The village was noted as a small hamlet by French explorerVictor Guérin in 1875.[11] In thePalestine Exploration Fund's 1882Survey of Western Palestine, Musmus was described as "a little village on a hillside, with springs to the south-west; the houses of stone and mud".[12]
In the1922 census the population of the village was 222, all Muslim,[13] increasing in1931 census to 256 residing in 50 houses.[14]
During theBritish Mandate, the total land area of Musmus was around 6,000dunams and its boundaries reached theJezreel Valley. The village did not have a school, and the children received basic education from Sheikh Abu Farid of Umm al-Fahm, and later by Sheikh Omar Balawi, a literacy teacher fromal-Butaymat who moved to Musmus in the 1930s. Toward the end of the British Mandate, the residents began building the village's first mosque, but construction was not completed.[4]
In the1945 statistics, the Musmus population was counted (together with other villages) under Umm al-Fahm.[15][16][17][18]
In addition to agriculture, residents practicedanimal husbandry which formed was an important source of income for the town. In 1943, they owned 136 heads ofcattle, 50sheep over a year old, 249goats over a year old, 17horses, 35donkeys, 950fowls, and 340pigeons.[19]
During the1948 Arab-Israeli War the village and the surrounding area came underIraqi control. In March 1949Jordanian forces replaced the Iraqi forces in Wadi Ara.[20] On 3 April 1949 Israel and Jordan signed the1949 Armistice Agreements, in which Israel would receive the Wadi Ara area.[21] On 20 April 1949, Musmus was taken by Israeli forces and was later annexed to Israel along with the rest of the Wadi Ara villages.[22]
In 1954 the first mosque was built in the village.[23] Musmus is one of the villages of Wadi Ara that lacked municipal status. In 1973, theInterior Ministry wanted to declare the village as a local council, but the residents rejected the proposal.[24] Musmus remained without municipal status[25] and was under the administration ofmukhtars (village headmen) who were appointed by the Interior Ministry[26] until 1992, when the Interior Ministry established theNahal Ironregional council. The locals objected to the administrative arrangement and sought independent municipal status for each village. To allay local concerns, the Interior Ministry established an investigative committee to examine other options, and in 1996, decided to split the regional council into two local councils:Ma'ale Iron, which includes Musmus, andBasma.[27]
In 2002, a suicide bombing attack on anEgged bus at the Musmus junction onHighway 65 killed seven people and wounded thirty. ThePalestinian Islamic Jihad organization claimed responsibility.[28]
In 2009, an Israeli court ordered the demolition of a house that was built illegally in the village. When Interior Ministry workers arrived at Musmus with police reinforcements to carry out the demolition order, they were met with resistance from the inhabitants. The police used crowd control weapons to disperse the riot, lightly wounding five women.[29] In 2013 the far-right wing partyOtzma Yehudit held a march in the village in protest against unauthorized construction in Arab communities in Israel. No major incident was reported, but there was a large police presence at the protests. The villagers held a counter protest and called for the Jewish protesters to leave.[30]
According to the 2008 census of theCentral Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Musmus had 3,900 residents, 99.7% of them Muslim.
42.5% were under age 17, 54.4% were aged 18–64, and 3.2% were over 65. The median age was 22.[31]
| Year | 1922 | 1931 | 1961 | 1972 | 1983 | 1995 | 2008 | 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Population | 222 | 256 | 738 | 1,248 | 1,838 | 2,461 | 3,900 | 4,215 |
According to the 2008 CBS census, 40.5% of residents were in the annualcivilian labour force; 66.3% of the men and 16.1% of the women. 32.6% of the male workforce were employed in construction; 20.7% inwholesale,retail trade, andAuto Mechanism; 15.1% in education; and the rest in other sectors. 54.5% of the female workforce worked in education and 17.9% in health services, social service, and welfare service, and the rest in various other sectors.[31]
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