Will the ghosts of Lifta come back to haunt Israel?
Every Palestinian knows the story of Lifta, a small village on a hillside near the city of Jerusalem. During its war to conquer Palestinian-majority areas of Palestine in 1947 and 1948, Israel ethnically cleansed and eventually destroyed more than 530 Palestinian villages. Today, Lifta is one of the few remaining ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages under Israel’s control that has not been totally destroyed.
But that may soon change. In addition to expanding the illegal settlements in the West Bank and surrounding Jerusalem to prevent the city from ever becoming a part of a Palestinian state, Israel’s government is considering a plan to destroy the beautiful homes of the Lifta ghost town. They want to build expensive luxury villas — for Jewish people only, of course.
Drive past Lifta and you can see the old Palestinian homes hugging the mountainside. A picture of that view from the road is often used as an emblem by the many Lifta Palestine chapters that seek to preserve the history of this centuries-old village.
In 1948, Israel’s pre-state militias attacked Lifta in an act of “vengeance.” Zionist activists alleged, mainly after 1948 and through the pro-Israel Western media, that the 1929 protests against increased Jewish immigration into Palestine by the British were led by Lifta-based leaders. Although Jewish militias attacked Palestinians during the protests, Western media focused on the violence against Jewish immigrants.
Some Arabs have always suspected that the Israelis never razed the old Arab homes in Lifta so they could act as a reminder to the Palestinians of Jewish Israeli supremacy.
Anyone who drives south on Highway 50 from Jerusalem, just past the “Golda Meir
Interchange,” can see the remains of the destroyed Palestinian village. It is a stark reminder of what Israel can do to anyone who challenges its supremacy.
Now, more than 73 years after the Nakba, the symbolism of Lifta’s destruction no longer carries the same punitive weight for Palestinians, although the village is still revered.
That might be why the Israel Lands Authority (ILA) announced last week that it will be accepting bids from Jewish developers to build luxury villas on the site.
The same proposal came up in 2010 but was blocked after protests from human rights groups. The old mosque in Lifta was destroyed and Israel’s government plans to build a new synagogue there. There have been court orders preventing demolition of the village. And Israel at one time included it in a nature reserve without demolishing the remaining buildings.
The latest plan to destroy Lifta’s memory seems to have greater momentum because of the weakening of the Palestinian cause in the Arab world. However, many Lifta activists have been organizing conferences to see what can be done to ward off this latest threat.
Lifta’s symbolism is significant to many Palestinians and it will be interesting to see if human rights organizations will again protest against Israel’s plans to demolish the remaining properties.
Destroying Lifta would be just another Israeli war crime. But, as we know, thanks in large part to the pro-Israel bias of sections of the Western media, Israel rarely has to face justice for its human rights violations, war crimes or violence against civilians.
If Israel’s government can destroy Lifta, it means that one day it could destroy Ramallah, or even Bethlehem.
Who is stopping them?