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Navigating Lost Villages in Israel Navigating Lost Villages in Israel
(4 months later)
HUKOK, Israel — Heading up to the Sea of Galilee last weekend, I traveled a lost land. While my husband drove through 2014 Israel, past vast greenhouses and sleek malls, I navigated 1948 Palestine on my iPhone. HUKOK, Israel — Heading up to the Sea of Galilee last weekend, I traveled a lost land. While my husband drove through 2014 Israel, past vast greenhouses and sleek malls, I navigated 1948 Palestine on my iPhone.
Using the new iNakba app, I saw scores of villages destroyed or abandoned as Israel became a state 66 years ago. Not far from Hukok, a kibbutz where I rode my bicycle on Sunday through the construction site of a subdivision of large, lovely villas, iNakba showed Yaquq, with five photographs — an ancient spring and olive press, the remains of a column and those of a house.Using the new iNakba app, I saw scores of villages destroyed or abandoned as Israel became a state 66 years ago. Not far from Hukok, a kibbutz where I rode my bicycle on Sunday through the construction site of a subdivision of large, lovely villas, iNakba showed Yaquq, with five photographs — an ancient spring and olive press, the remains of a column and those of a house.
“Nakba,” Arabic for “catastrophe,” is how Palestinians refer to the events surrounding Israel’s Declaration of Independence. INakba, unveiled on Israel’s Independence Day last week, is how the Israeli group Zochrot hopes to inculcate those events into the public consciousness. The app is in Hebrew, English and Arabic — and, probably more important, integrated with Google Maps and the GPS tool Waze, placing this painful, contested history into the daily data stream of any willing smartphone user. “Nakba,” Arabic for “catastrophe,” is how Palestinians refer to the events surrounding Israel’s Declaration of Independence. INakba, unveiled on Israel’s Independence Day last week, is how the Israeli group Zochrot hopes to inculcate those events into the public consciousness. The app is in Hebrew, English and Arabic — and, probably more important, integrated with Google Maps and the GPS tool Waze, placing this painful, contested history into the daily data stream of any willing smartphone user.
“It’s not a coincidence that we all use the phrase, ‘Now you’re on the map’ — maps are a very political tool,” said Liat Rosenberg, director of Zochrot. “If you’re on the map it has legitimacy. It forces Israelis to have it in their face.”“It’s not a coincidence that we all use the phrase, ‘Now you’re on the map’ — maps are a very political tool,” said Liat Rosenberg, director of Zochrot. “If you’re on the map it has legitimacy. It forces Israelis to have it in their face.”
Zochrot, Hebrew for “remembering,” has for 13 years been leading tours of destroyed villages, collecting testimony from aging Arabs, and advocating the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. But it preaches almost exclusively to the converted. Israel is a country where government-funded organizations can be fined for mourning on Independence Day, and where the foreign minister denounced as a “fifth column” thousands of Arab-Israeli citizens who marked the Nakba last week by marching in support of refugee return.Zochrot, Hebrew for “remembering,” has for 13 years been leading tours of destroyed villages, collecting testimony from aging Arabs, and advocating the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. But it preaches almost exclusively to the converted. Israel is a country where government-funded organizations can be fined for mourning on Independence Day, and where the foreign minister denounced as a “fifth column” thousands of Arab-Israeli citizens who marked the Nakba last week by marching in support of refugee return.
Ari Shavit’s new book, “My Promised Land,” has begun to bring into the mainstream discussion the idea that Zionists must wrestle with the Nakba. In a Huffington Post column last week titled “Independence and Nakba, Intertwined and Inseparable,” Avraham Burg, a leftist former Israeli lawmaker, offered as a parallel German acknowledgment of Holocaust horrors, citing an artist’s placement of “stumbling blocks” on sidewalks to “take note, at the entrances to houses, of those who left them never to return.”Ari Shavit’s new book, “My Promised Land,” has begun to bring into the mainstream discussion the idea that Zionists must wrestle with the Nakba. In a Huffington Post column last week titled “Independence and Nakba, Intertwined and Inseparable,” Avraham Burg, a leftist former Israeli lawmaker, offered as a parallel German acknowledgment of Holocaust horrors, citing an artist’s placement of “stumbling blocks” on sidewalks to “take note, at the entrances to houses, of those who left them never to return.”
The iNakba app uses virtual golden pushpins, more than 500 of them scattered across the Google map of Israel. The app provides details like the date in 1948 each village was occupied, by which military brigade, and Jewish settlements before and since. Perhaps the app’s greatest promise is its social component — users can upload photos and videos, or “follow” villages to virtually recreate lost communities.The iNakba app uses virtual golden pushpins, more than 500 of them scattered across the Google map of Israel. The app provides details like the date in 1948 each village was occupied, by which military brigade, and Jewish settlements before and since. Perhaps the app’s greatest promise is its social component — users can upload photos and videos, or “follow” villages to virtually recreate lost communities.
Leaving Jerusalem, we passed Lifta, which had nine followers, and included a picture captioned “the type of dress Yaakub’s father wore when they left.” Along Route 90, where road signs pointed to Tiberias, Afula and Tel Aviv, iNakba marked al-Samiriyya (pop. 290, occupied May 1), Farwana (pop. 380, May 11) and Bashatwi (pop. 1,810, May 1). In Beit She’an, home to both ancient ruins and a big McDonald’s, we turned off in search of Beisan (pop. 6,010, occupied May 12). Where iNakba places its pushpin sits a minimart named Moses. Farther north, amid the 741-acre Switzerland Forest, iNakba notes al-Manara and Nasir al-Din, two villages that predate the trees.Leaving Jerusalem, we passed Lifta, which had nine followers, and included a picture captioned “the type of dress Yaakub’s father wore when they left.” Along Route 90, where road signs pointed to Tiberias, Afula and Tel Aviv, iNakba marked al-Samiriyya (pop. 290, occupied May 1), Farwana (pop. 380, May 11) and Bashatwi (pop. 1,810, May 1). In Beit She’an, home to both ancient ruins and a big McDonald’s, we turned off in search of Beisan (pop. 6,010, occupied May 12). Where iNakba places its pushpin sits a minimart named Moses. Farther north, amid the 741-acre Switzerland Forest, iNakba notes al-Manara and Nasir al-Din, two villages that predate the trees.
Abed Barghouti, chief executive of Netaj, the Arab-Israeli firm that created the app, said it answered a question that had always nagged him: how he will tell his children the story of Safuriyya, the village his family is from.Abed Barghouti, chief executive of Netaj, the Arab-Israeli firm that created the app, said it answered a question that had always nagged him: how he will tell his children the story of Safuriyya, the village his family is from.
Mr. Barghouti said that whenever he sees cactus, which Arabs often plant around their homes, he imagines he has found remnants of a village, but never knows “which village was it, how many people lived here, which families, when did they move.”Mr. Barghouti said that whenever he sees cactus, which Arabs often plant around their homes, he imagines he has found remnants of a village, but never knows “which village was it, how many people lived here, which families, when did they move.”
Mr. Barghouti’s wife is pregnant. Someday, that baby may open iNakba to find Safuriyya had 5,020 residents when it was occupied on July 16, 1948. There are already 13 photographs showing its old stones.Mr. Barghouti’s wife is pregnant. Someday, that baby may open iNakba to find Safuriyya had 5,020 residents when it was occupied on July 16, 1948. There are already 13 photographs showing its old stones.