remain after the 1970s in Ma¯qu¯ra was Abu¯ Ma¯zen (’Ali¯ al-Yu¯ni¯s al-Ma¯d i ¯) who went through years of lawsuits concerning ownership of his land. He died some years ago and his widow and younger children still live in Ma¯qu¯ra, prevented by the state from refurbishing their run- down house and still involved with the courts. The great majority of refugees ended up far from the village—in Iraq (to which they were taken by the Iraqi regent shortly after they arrived in Jeni¯n as refugees in the summer of 1948), Syria, Jordan and the West Bank. CONCLUDING REMARKS As the story of Ijzim unfolds—Sa’i¯d al-Madani¯’s act of revenge, prisoners kidnapped and exchanged,  the  Iraqi  limited  assistance,  the  fall  of  the  village  and  the  dispersal  of  its inhabitants—the villagers’ oral accounts and the army documents often complement each other  and  sometimes  converge.  Unlike  Kurosawa’s  Rashomon,  the  testimonies  of  the witnesses  do  not  significantly  diverge.  Knowing  that  the  army  documents  were  written shortly after the events (within a few hours or days), for internal use (usually being classified as  “secret”),  it  may  perhaps  be  expected  that  they  carry  relatively  little  imprint  of  the intervention and reconstruction of official state representations. It is more perplexing that the villagers’   narratives   are   not   highly   inventive.   We   should   bear   in   mind   that   these autobiographical accounts are records of a dramatic (and traumatic) period and the incidents have  left  an  imprint on  those  who  have  lived  through  them.  Furthermore,  many  of  these incidents  have  been  re-examined  repeatedly  after  their  occurrence,  discussed  in  family settings and circulated among the dispersed village community. At the same time, the oral sources and the written accounts diverge in their “spirit.” The army  documents  lack  a  description  of  distinct  people  and  their  characteristics,  especially those of “the enemy.” This is due not only to the fact that the writers of these documents express   a   national   Jewish   sentiment   but   also   to   the   nature   and   needs   of   military documentation.  In  contrast,  the  oral  narrative  revolves  around  certain  people.  There  are memorable men such as the bus driver Sa ’i¯d al-Madani¯ or the man who was killed on al- Madani¯’s  bus,  T awfi¯q  al-Mura¯d.  These  men,  through  the  years  of  story-circulation,  have become  symbols  for  the  dispersed  community.  In  other  stories,  each  family  has  its  own protagonist,  as  when  Abu¯  Na’i¯m  relates  to  his  uncle  Murshid  who  guarded  the  Jewish captives or when Abu¯  Dau¯d recalls his father’s cousin, ’Abdalla¯h Zeida¯n, who rejected the option of surrender. Unlike the army documents, the oral accounts are characterized by an ability to inject life, volume and an internal logic to the story. In fact, the logic of certain chaotic episodes may continue to unfold long after their occurrence. The oral accounts are further animated by the naming of places, the inclusion of dialogues (though reconstructed, and as such, not totally faithful to the original ones), and exposure of the  emotions  and  incentives  that  motivated  the  people.  In  the  discussion  regarding  the evacuation of at -T i ¯reh’s women and children, we learn of the devastating emotional effect on the  men  when  they  were  left  without  their  families.  It  was  not  necessarily  only  strategic conditions such as the fall of Haifa that determined the outcome of the war. Rather, it was also  the  villagers’ subjective  interpretation  of  the  meaning  of  such  events.  The  fighters’ motivation  was  impaired  when  the  village’s  social  fabric  changed.  In  retrospect,  the disintegration of the village, intensified through the months of sporadic fighting, is perceived as contributory to its fall. No less devastating was the ’Iraqi failure to come to the rescue when the villagers were already desperate. The local story that emerges accentuates the gap between Arab political rhetoric and the actual practical conditions. Whereas the Arab States were vocal regarding their militant intentions, in practice, at least in the Carmel Region, their intervention was very ANTHROPOLOGICAL HISTORIES OF A PALESTINIAN VILLAGE 25