JERUSALEM — Flanked by busy highways and tucked into terraced slopes of the Jerusalem hills, a crumbling Palestinian village abandoned more than 60 years ago has become the focus of a struggle over memory and heritage.
The nearly 3,000 people who lived in Lifta fled during the war that accompanied the establishment of Israel. Experts say the old village homes, with their distinctive stonework, along with a mosque, a spring and remains of granaries and olive presses, are unique remnants of a vanished way of life....READ MORE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-palestinian-villages-preservation-opportunity/2011/06/27/AGKcLLuH_story.html
ReplyDeleteletter
A Palestinian village’s preservation opportunity
Published: July 1
As a researcher and author on Palestinian villages and social history, I appreciate Joel Greenberg’s clear and insightful June 27 news story on the village of Lifta [“Development plan for abandoned Palestinian village stirs up a troubled past”]. Of the 418 Palestinian villages that were depopulated of their Palestinian Muslim and Christian residents in the 1948 war, only 20 have more than a few buildings still standing. The other 400 have been almost entirely destroyed. In that sense, the development plan for the village of Lifta offers a rare opportunity to preserve the heritage of the entire area, including the material evidence of a prosperous Arab village in the mid-20th century.
Any development should include the village’s former residents, who have published three detailed books on village history. This development plan presents a symbolic opportunity: Preserving Lifta’s heritage as a Palestinian village would be a significant step the Israeli government could make toward living with its Palestinian citizens and acknowledging their past on the land.
Rochelle A. Davis, Washington