The Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948 in the Israeli Discourse by Noga Kadman

Over 400 Palestinian villages were depopulated during the 1948 war. Their inhabitants, numbering hundreds of thousands, had fled or were deported. The newly established state of Israel prevented the return of the refugees, confiscated their homes, lands and other property, demolished most of their villages, and settled Jews on their lands and sometimes in their houses.

The book elaborates on the marginalization of the villages within the Israeli discourse, which is complementary to the physical erasure and dispossession: wiping or Hebrewizing the villages' names; masking or omitting their locations in official maps; ignoring them and their depopulation circumstances in information given to the public in national parks and other tourist sites that were created on half of the villages sites, and accepting their dispossession by inhabitants of Jewish settlements built on villages residential sites.

Embedded in the erasure processes, Kadman locates the ideology of Judaization, which results are evident in Israel's space, demographic make-up, as well as the delimiting citizens' political and moral awareness. The book aims at re-threading knowledge and awareness of the Palestinian depopulated villages in Israeli society, their lack undermining rigorous understanding of the current conflict and realistic conceptualization of future reconciliation.

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"Kadman's research is pioneering and important [...] it explores a fascinating geographical, political and psychological phenomenon, which illuminates the mechanisms used in the erasure of one ethnic space and in setting up another in its place [...]"

Prof. Oren Yiftahel, Department of Geography, Ben Gurion University. http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General/Story11000.html From the book introduction

"Kadman is worthy of all praise [...] This book [...] is second to none in the historical research of the state of Israel, the most important summary of mapping and cataloging works".

Dr. Yitzchak Laor, poet, novelist, editor, in Haaretz, 08.08.08

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Also in the book:

v A detailed List of the 418 depopulated villages

v A Map identifying the location of the villages

v A selection of current photographs documenting the remains of demolished villages

v An overview of explanatory signs in National Parks and JNF forests

v Quotes from the Governmental Names Committee and from publications of Kibbutzim and Moshavim.

Noga Kadman, Born and grew up in Jerusalem, has years of hands-on experience in the fields of human rights and the Israel-Palestinian conflict through work, research and volunteering. She has an MA in Peace and Development Studies from Goteborg University, Sweden.

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