Destroyed Palestinian Villages:
A Reign of Terror & Systematic Expulsion

The systematic annihilation of over 85 percent of all existing Palestinian villages in the wake of the 1948 war is a reality that until recently Israeli historians have ignored. It was a process that accompanied terror, mass murder and systematic expulsion. The infamous massacre of Dayr Yasin has been presented by a majority of Israeli historians as an isolated incident carried out by right-wing extremists. History dictates that we examine the atrocity of Dayr Yasin within the framework of a series of well-organized and systematic attacks designed to instill terror and induce mass exodus.

Since 1983, the Center has focused upon the use of oral history techniques--supported by other methods--to conduct research and collect documentation on Palestinian villages destroyed in the wake of the 1948 War. Through continuous staff training, development and the refinement of oral history techniques, together with outstanding publications on the subject, the Center has acquired an unrivaled reputation for the study of destroyed villages and the use of oral history.

The Center has collected, recorded and transcribed the testimonies of hundreds of refugees who lived in present day Israel before 1948. It has researched, gathered documentation, and published monographs twenty destroyed villages inside the Green Line, discovering in the process previously unknown events that have caused international outrage upon publication (such as the discovery of the massacre of fifty inhabitants of Abu Shusha village in May 1948). Work on the history of five more destroyed villages is in progress, with publications dates planned in 1997.

The Center has also played a major role in the fieldwork and research for the ground breaking Institute of Palestine Studies publication All That Remains--The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, edited by Dr. Walid Khalidi (Washington DC, 1982). The book is a comprehensive survey (including maps and photography) of 418 destroyed villages. It is from this book that we have extracted a brief synopsis of eleven of the villages we have studied.