View source for Mi'ar

{{short description|Palestinian village located 17.5 kilometers east of Acre}}
{{pp-30-500|small=yes}}
{{Infobox settlement
| name               = Mi'ar
| native_name        = ميعار
| native_name_lang   = ar
| settlement_type    = Village
<!-- images, nickname, motto -->| image_skyline      = Mi'ar.1937.jpg
| imagesize          = 230
| image_caption      = A Palestinian wedding celebration in Mi'ar in 1937
| etymology          = From personal name<ref>Palmer, 1881, p. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp00conduoft#page/114/mode/1up 114]</ref>
<!-- maps and coordinates -->| pushpin_map        = Mandatory Palestine
| pushpin_map_caption = Location within [[Mandatory Palestine]]
| image_map          = {{Historical map series|default=2|date1=1870s|date2=1940s|date3=modern|date4=1940s with modern overlay|width=225}}
| map_caption        = A series of historical maps of the area around {{PAGENAME}} (click the buttons)
| pushpin_mapsize    = 200
| coordinates        = {{coord|32|52|27|N|35|14|47|E|type:city_region:PS|display=inline,title}}
| grid_name          = [[Palestine grid|Palestine&nbsp;grid]]
| grid_position      = 173/253
<!-- location -->| subdivision_type   = [[Geopolitical entity]]
| subdivision_name   = [[Mandatory Palestine]]
| subdivision_type1  = [[Districts of Mandatory Palestine|Subdistrict]]
| subdivision_name1  = [[Acre Subdistrict, Mandatory Palestine|Acre]]
<!-- established -->| established_title1 = Date of depopulation
| established_date1  = 15–18 July 1948
| established_title2 = Repopulated dates
<!-- area -->| area_footnotes     = <ref name=Hadawi40/>
| unit_pref          = dunam
| area_total_dunam   = 10,788
<!-- population -->| population_as_of   = 1944
| population_total   = 770<ref name=1945p4>Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. [http://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/yabber/census/VSpages/VS1945_p04.jpg   4]</ref><ref name=Hadawi40>Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20I/Acre/Page-040.jpg 40]</ref>
<!-- blank fields (section 1) -->| blank_name_sec1    = Cause(s) of depopulation
| blank_info_sec1    = Military assault by [[Yishuv]] forces
| blank3_name_sec1   = Current Localities
| blank3_info_sec1   = [[Atzmon|Segev]],<ref name=Khalidi26>Khalidi, 1992, p. 26</ref> [[Ya'ad (moshav)|Ya'ad]]<ref name=Khalidi26/>  [[Manof]]<ref name=Khalidi26/>
}}

'''Mi'ar''' ({{langx|ar|ميعار}}), was a [[Palestinians|Palestinian]] village located 17.5 kilometers east of [[Acre, Israel|Acre]]. Its population in 1945 was 770. The [[Crusaders]] referred to it as "Myary". By the 19th century, during [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] rule, it was a large [[Muslim]] village. The village was a center of Palestinian Arab rebel operations during the [[1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine]] against British rule and consequently the village was completely dynamited by the British. Mi'ar was later restored, but it was depopulated by [[Israel]]i forces during the [[1948 Arab-Israeli War]]. The Jewish communities of [[Atzmon]], [[Ya'ad (moshav)|Ya'ad]] and [[Manof]] are located on former village land.

==History==
===Middle Ages===
Mi'ar contained the archaeological remains of buildings, fragments of columns, olive presses, and cisterns.<ref name=Khalidi26/> It was referred to by the [[Crusades|Crusaders]] as "Myary".<ref name=Khalidi26/>

===Ottoman era===
Incorporated into the [[Ottoman Empire]] in 1517 with all of [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], Mi'ar appeared in the 1596 [[Defter|tax registers]] as being in the Akka Nahiya (Subdistrict of [[Acre, Israel|Acre]]), part of the [[Safad Sanjak]] (District of Safed). It had a population 10 [[Muslim]] households, an estimated 55 persons. The villagers paid fixed tax rate of 25% on wheat and barley, fruit, goats and beehives; a total of 1,235 [[akçe]].<ref>Hütteroth and  Abdulfattah 1977, p. 193, as given in Khalidi, 1992, p. 26</ref><ref>Note that Rhode 1979, p. [https://www.academia.edu/2026845/The_Administration_and_Population_of_the_Sancak_of_Safed_in_the_Sixteenth_Century 6] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190420031504/https://www.academia.edu/2026845/The_Administration_and_Population_of_the_Sancak_of_Safed_in_the_Sixteenth_Century |date=2019-04-20 }} writes that the register that Hütteroth and  Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9.</ref>

In the late 1700, the Italian traveler [[Giovanni Mariti]] noted that  around al-Damun and Mi'ar were two "delightful valleys, ornamented with groves and wild shrubs. The peasants who live in the [[Hamlet (place)|hamlets]] around, enjoy a most pleasant situation."<ref>Mariti, 1792, p. [https://archive.org/stream/travelsthroughc00marigoog#page/n373/mode/1up 343]</ref> 

In 1875, French explorer [[Victor Guérin]] visited Mi'ar, and noted that it contained "several trunks of columns, three broken capitals, and a certain number old cut stones, coming from some ancient building. I observed also many blocks of ancient appearance disposed round threshing-floors. There are also [[cistern]]s, walls, and caves cut in the rock, which belong to times more or less remote."<ref>Guérin, 1880, p. [https://archive.org/stream/descriptiongogr01unkngoog#page/n447/mode/1up 434], as given in Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp01conduoft#page/325/mode/1up 325]</ref> He found Mi'ar to be inhabited by 500 Muslims.<ref>Guérin, 1880, p. [https://archive.org/stream/descriptiongogr01unkngoog#page/n447/mode/1up 434], as given in Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp01conduoft#page/271/mode/1up 271]</ref>

In 1881, the [[Palestine Exploration Fund|PEF]]'s ''[[PEF Survey of Palestine|Survey of Western Palestine]]'' (SWP) described it as a large village situated on high ground that was rough and uncultivated. The villagers, whose number was estimated to be 1,500 (in 1859), cultivated some 30 [[faddan]]s.<ref name=SWP271>Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp01conduoft#page/271/mode/1up 271]. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 26.</ref> A population list from about 1887 showed that ''Mi'ar'' had about 480  inhabitants; all Muslims.<ref>Schumacher, 1888, p. [https://archive.org/stream/quarterlystateme19pale#page/n201/mode/1up 176]</ref> An elementary school was founded by the Ottomans in 1888, however, it closed its doors in the final years of the Empire.<ref name=Khalidi26/>

===British Mandate era===
[[File:Miar3.png|thumb|right|250px|Mi'ar being blown up by the British in 1938.]]
British forces drove out the Ottomans in 1917, during [[World War I]], and the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]] was established in 1920. In the [[1922 census of Palestine|1922 British census]], Mi'ar had a population of 429 Muslims.<ref name="Census1922">Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Acre, p. [https://archive.org/stream/PalestineCensus1922/Palestine%20Census%20%281922%29#page/n39/mode/1up  37]</ref> The population increased to 543, still all Muslim, in the [[1931 census of Palestine|1931 census]] and the inhabitants lived in a total of 109 houses.<ref name="Census1931">Mills, 1932,  p. [https://archive.org/details/CensusOfPalestine1931.PopulationOfVillagesTownsAndAdministrativeAreas 102].</ref>

A number of Mi'ar's residents participated in [[1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine|1936–1939 Arab revolt]] against British rule and mass Jewish immigration in Palestine, and the village became a center of rebel operations in the Galilee.<ref name="Bethell49">Bethell, 1979, p. 49</ref> The rebels often opened fired on British troops passing near Mi'ar, damaged roads in the vicinity to render them impassable by the British authorities, cut electrical cables, and planted landmines to hit British vehicles.<ref name="Bethell49"/> One of the authorities' controversial methods of suppressing the revolt was the blowing up of houses in a village where there was support for rebels.<ref name="Bethell49"/> On 26 October 1938, two British battalions launched a raid against Mi'ar and began dynamiting the large houses of the village.<ref name="Bethell49"/> They then demanded Mi'ar's ''[[mukhtar]]'' (headman) to issue a call to the village's rebels to surrender their rifles or else the dynamiting would continue.<ref name="Bethell49"/> No rifles were surrendered and the British resumed their dynamiting of the village's homes.<ref name="Bethell49"/> Mi'ar was entirely destroyed for its alleged support of the rebels.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Hughes | first1 = Matthew | year = 2009 | title = The banality of brutality: British armed forces and the repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–39 | url = http://v-scheiner.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/7251/4/The%20banality%20of%20brutality.pdf | journal = English Historical Review | volume = CXXIV | issue = 507 | pages = 314–354 | doi = 10.1093/ehr/cep002 | url-status = bot: unknown | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160221163210/http://v-scheiner.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/7251/4/The%20banality%20of%20brutality.pdf | archive-date = 2016-02-21 }}</ref><ref>Mills, J. [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DUpQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Gg4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6841%2C4565653  "British Minesweepers and Dynamite Battle Palestine's Arab Rebels"], The Milwaukee Sentinel, Haifa, 26 October 1938.</ref> A ''[[New York Times]]'' reporter present during the destruction wrote, "When the [British] troops left, there was little else remaining of this once busy village except a pile of mangled masonry."<ref name="Bethell49"/>

The village was rebuilt and in the [[Village Statistics, 1945|1945 statistics]], the population of Mi'ar grew to 770, all Muslims.<ref name=1945p4/> A total of 2,878 dunams of village land was used for cereals, while 113 dunams were irrigated or used for orchards.<ref name=Khalidi26/><ref>Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20II/Acre/Page-081.jpg 81]</ref>

===1948 War and aftermath===
According to [[Ilan Pappé]], on 20 June 1948 Israeli troops entered Mi'ar and shot indiscriminately against its residents while they were working in their fields, the village's houses were destroyed and forty inhabitants were killed. One witness to the Israeli attack was the Palestinian writer, [[Muhammad Ali Taha]], then a 17-year-old boy.<ref name="Pappe150">Pappé 2007, p. 150.</ref> Mi'ar's residents later returned and continued living in the village until Israeli troops from the [[Sheva Brigade]] reoccupied it on 15 July 1948, as part of the second stage of [[Operation Dekel]].<ref name="Morris421">Morris 2004, p.  [https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PA421 421]</ref><ref name="Pappe150"/> According to [[Benny Morris]], Mi'ar's 893 inhabitants fled during the Israeli assault,<ref name="Morris421"/> while Pappé asserts that they were expelled.<ref name="Pappe150"/>

The Jewish communities of Segev (now [[Atzmon]]), [[Ya'ad (moshav)|Ya'ad]] and  [[Manof]] were built on Mi'ar's lands.<ref name=Khalidi26/><ref name="Pappe150" /> The village's remains in 1992 consisted of "some truncated stone walls, simple graves, and fig and olive trees". The site, which "was largely covered by cypress trees" had become a recreational area.<ref name=Khalidi26/>

Many of the refugees of Mi'ar became [[internally displaced Palestinians]] resettled in nearby [[Kabul, Israel|Kabul]], [[Sha'ab, Israel|Sha'ab]] and [[Arraba, Israel|Arraba]].<ref name="Boqai80">Boqa'i 2005, p. 80.</ref> Neighborhoods in each of the villages where Mi'ar refugees and their descendants reside are named Mi'ari after their village of origin.<ref name="Boqai80"/>

==See also==
* [[Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel]]

==References==
{{reflist|25em}}

==Bibliography==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book 
| editor =Barron, J.B. | title =Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922 | url =https://archive.org/details/PalestineCensus1922 | publisher =Government of Palestine | year =1923 }}
*{{cite book|last=Bethell|first=N.|author-link=Nicholas Bethell, 4th Baron Bethell|title=The Palestine Triangle: The Struggle for the Holy Land, 1935-48|date=1979|publisher=Putnam|url=https://archive.org/details/palestinetriangl00beth|url-access=registration|quote=Miar.}}
*{{cite book |last1=Boqa'i |first1=Nihad |editor-last=Masalha |editor-first=Nur |title=Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel and the Internal Refugees |date=2005 |publisher=Zed Books |location=New York |isbn=1-84277-622-3 |pages=73–112 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xYWNCX-eYRcC |chapter=Patterns of Internal Displacement, Social Adjustment and the Challenge of Return }}
*{{cite book
|last1=Conder|first1=C.R.|author-link1=Claude Reignier Conder
|last2=Kitchener|first2=H.H.|author-link2=Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
|year=1881
|url=https://archive.org/details/surveyofwesternp01conduoft
|title=The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology|location=London|publisher=[[Palestine Exploration Fund|Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund]]
|volume=1}} 
*{{cite book
|title=Village Statistics, April, 1945|url=http://web.nli.org.il/sites/nli/Hebrew/library/Pages/BookReader.aspx?pid=856390|author=Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics|year=1945}}  
*{{cite book
|last=Guérin|first=V.|author-link=Victor Guérin
|title=Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine
|url=https://archive.org/details/descriptiongogr01unkngoog|volume=3: Galilee, pt. 1|year=1880
|publisher=L'Imprimerie Nationale
|location=Paris
|language=fr}} 
*{{cite book
|title=Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine
|url=http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html
|first=S.|last=Hadawi|author-link=Sami Hadawi
|year=1970|publisher=Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center}}
*{{cite book 
|last1=Hütteroth |first1=W.-D.|author-link1=Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth
|last2=Abdulfattah|first2=K. |author-link2=Kamal Abdulfattah 
|title=Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wqULAAAAIAAJ |year=1977 |publisher=Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft |isbn=3-920405-41-2 }}
*{{cite book|title=All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_By7AAAAIAAJ|first=W.|last=Khalidi|author-link=Walid Khalidi|year=1992|location=[[Washington D.C.]]|publisher=[[Institute for Palestine Studies]]|isbn=0-88728-224-5}} 
*{{cite book|title=Travels Through Cyprus, Syria, and Palestine; with a General History of the Levant|volume=1|url=https://archive.org/details/travelsthroughc00marigoog|first=Giovanni|last=Mariti|year=1792|location=Dublin|publisher=P. Byrne}} 
*{{cite book | editor = Mills, E. | title = Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas | url = https://archive.org/details/CensusOfPalestine1931.PopulationOfVillagesTownsAndAdministrativeAreas | publisher = Government of Palestine | location = Jerusalem | year = 1932 }}  
*{{cite book|last=Morris|first=B.|author-link=Benny Morris|title=The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2004|isbn=0-521-00967-7}}
*{{cite book|last=Palmer|first=E.H.|author-link=Edward Henry Palmer|year=1881|url=https://archive.org/details/surveyofwesternp00conduoft|title=The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer|publisher=[[Palestine Exploration Fund|Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund]]}}
*{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yjeXQVmGrwcC |first=I. |last=Pappé |author-link=Ilan Pappé |year=2007 |others=(reprint) |title=The ethnic cleansing of Palestine |isbn=978-1-78074-056-0 |publisher=Oneworld Publications Limited }}
*{{cite thesis |type=PhD |last=Rhode |first=H. |author-link=Harold Rhode |date=1979 |url=https://www.academia.edu/2026845 |title=Administration and Population of the Sancak of Safed in the Sixteenth Century |publisher=[[Columbia University]] |access-date=2017-11-02 |archive-date=2020-03-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301141739/https://www.academia.edu/2026845/The_Administration_and_Population_of_the_Sancak_of_Safed_in_the_Sixteenth_Century |url-status=dead }}
*{{cite journal | last = Schumacher | first = G. | author-link = Gottlieb Schumacher | title = Population list of the Liwa of Akka | journal = Quarterly Statement - Palestine Exploration Fund | volume = 20 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/quarterlystateme19pale/page/169 169]–191 | url = https://archive.org/details/quarterlystateme19pale | year = 1888 }}
{{refend}}

==External links==
*[http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Mi'ar/index.html Welcome to Mi'ar]
*[http://www.zochrot.org/en/village/49249 Mi'ar], [[Zochrot]]
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 5: [http://www.iaa-archives.org.il/zoom/zoom.aspx?folder_id=93&type_id=6&id=8368  IAA], [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Survey_of_Western_Palestine_1880.05.jpg Wikimedia commons] 
*[http://www.alnakba.org/villages/acre/miar.htm Miar], at [[Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center]]
*{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20110713081338/http://www.jalili48.com/pub/xENShowGallery.aspx?Sub=What_Remained_of_the_destroyed&Sub2=Mi3ar  Mi3ar photos]}} from Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh
*[http://www.zochrot.org/en/node/49249 All About... Mi'ar], from [[Zochrot]]
*[http://www.zochrot.org/en/tour/51075  Visit to Mi’ar] 12/4 2002, by Norma {{Not a typo|Musih}}, [[Zochrot]]
*[http://www.zochrot.org/en/content/hearing-building-plan-mi’ar-yaad  Opposition to building plan in Mi’ar], [[Zochrot]]

{{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War}}

[[Category:Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War]]
[[Category:District of Acre]]