Edward Said is rolling in his grave

As is their wont, hard-line supporters of Israel have been pushing Barack Obama quite hard. He is, to them, an unknown commodity with questionable ties. Progressive Jewish opinion, on the other hand (and Arab Americans, as well), finds Obama appealing both because of his messages of hope and change and, specifically, because of comments he has made that indicate openness to a more nuanced discussion of Arab-Israeli peace-making. They latched on to, for example, comments he made to Jewish leaders in Cleveland on February 24th, where he appeared to reject identifying being pro-Israel with “adopting an unwaveringly pro-Likud view of Israel,” and his statement to a Jewish reporter that “in order to make progress in Arab-Israeli talks…both sides should be held accountable to previous agreements.”

There was, therefore, keen interest in how Barack Obama would address these concerns in his remarks before AIPAC’s policy conference today. For the most part, his speech pushed all the “right” buttons. It included a personal narrative that connected his story with that of the Jewish people, including his uncle’s role in the World War II liberation of a concentration camp at Buchenwald, and the larger narrative of the historic bonds between the African American and American Jewish communities based on a shared commitment to liberal values and forged in the American civil rights movement.

In addressing matters of foreign policy, the nub of the matter for AIPAC, Obama did his fair share of genuflecting and oath-taking, most of which is expected before an AIPAC audience that insists upon such displays. But, on the whole, Obama’s speech was less troubling than many others delivered before AIPAC, and contrasted favorably with the AIPAC “talking point” litany delivered one hour later by Senator Clinton.

He was properly tough on Iran, but correctly took on John McCain’s refusal to criticize the central role that the debacle in Iraq has played in destabilizing the Middle East while emboldening Iran and extremism. He repeatedly emphasized the need for principled diplomacy as the way to move forward. He smartly contrasted his commitment to peace-making with the neglect of the Bush administration by pledging active involvement in the search for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel and Syria, and noting the responsibilities of all parties in the Middle East to contribute to that process. He specifically called on Israel to “take appropriate steps — consistent with its security — to ease the freedom of movement for Palestinians, improve economic conditions in the West Bank, and to refrain from building new settlements.” He urged support for Palestinian President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, and emphasized that “Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive, and that allows them to prosper.”

“Most Israelis and Palestinians want peace,” Obama noted, “we must strengthen their hand. The United States must be a strong and consistent partner in this process — not to force concession, but to help partners avoid stalemate and the kind of vacuums that are filled by violence.”

If he had stopped there, it might have been an acceptable speech to all sides, but he went further, including a deeply troubling reference to Jerusalem which he said “will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” Left unexplained, this was both unnecessarily provocative and contradictory. If the U.S. is not to “force concessions,” then why predetermine the status of Jerusalem, one of the more sensitive and complicated issues in the negotiations, in a speech to AIPAC? And if Palestinians need a state that is “contiguous,” “cohesive” and “prosperous,” how does that occur when one has cut the heart out of the center of the West Bank? (Note: it has been a Palestinian position that Jerusalem can “remain the capital of Israel” and can “remain undivided” as long as that does not preclude the Palestinians from also having their capital in a “shared” city.)

The AIPAC audience may have cheered, but Arabs, who called me from East Jerusalem, where they were watching the speech on TV, were deeply disheartened, as were Israeli peace activists with whom I spoke.

Better than McCain? Of course. More thoughtful than his predecessors? Clearly. But for those who have embraced Obama’s “change we can believe in” slogan, a few doubts have now crept in.
-James Zogby

Arab Americans leaning towards Obama

Most Arab-Americans support Obama

Many feel a kinship with the Democrat, who they say can repair America’s reputation abroad.

By Tamara El-Khoury, Times Staff Writer
Published March 10, 2008

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Saleh Mubarak is Syrian-American. He’s 49, a Tampa engineer, a former longtime Republican.

And he supports Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for president, following a trend in the country’s Arab-American community.

“The American image in the outside world has been damaged, and we want someone who will reach out to others and say, ‘Let’s sit at the table and talk,’” said Mubarak, who emigrated from Syria in 1981. “That’s what attracted me to Obama. He said, ‘I will sit with Iran, I will sit with anyone.’”

Polls by Zogby International show that Arab-Americans overwhelmingly support Obama. Although Obama is Christian, he lived in predominantly Muslim Indonesia for a few years with his mother and stepfather.

Obama’s campaign had to defend against attacks on his patriotism and deflect repeated false reports spread on the Internet that he is Muslim.

“The biography, the empathy factor, they feel Obama understands the community,” said James Zogby, a senior analyst for Zogby International and founder and president of the Arab American Institute, a Washington, D.C., organization that researches politics and policy in the Arab-American community.

Arab-Americans also remember a line in Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Zogby said.

“If there’s an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties,” Obama said.

The 3.5-million Arab-Americans are not a uniform community. They are a complex group of immigrants from Arabic-speaking countries in southwest Asia and North Africa who share a common cultural heritage. More than 50 percent are Lebanese. The majority of Arab-Americans are Christian, Zogby said.

They make up about 1percent of the national vote and 11/2 percent to 2 percent of the vote in Florida.

In 2000, George Bush won the Arab-American vote. Today, far fewer say they will vote Republican, a result of the war in Iraq and Bush’s support for Israel. Antiterrorism measures like the Patriot Act, which have been criticized at times for unfairly targeting law-abiding Muslims and Arab-Americans, have further eroded support.

Twenty percent of Arab-Americans said they had been discriminated against since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and two-thirds said they were afraid that they or their children would experience discrimination if the current trends continue, Zogby said.

Civil liberties are among Mubarak’s main concerns. Arab-Americans, he said, have noticed an erosion of freedoms and less due process since Sept. 11. He said it took a year of humiliation and paperwork to get his name off a list that made it difficult for him to travel.

Samer AlGhafari, 39, an American of Syrian and Indian descent living in Tampa, echoes those feelings. His reflex is to look over his shoulder every time he wants to say something.

“Some of the recent policies made internally seem to have lost quite a bit of what made America America, which is the personal liberties and due process,” he said. “Many of the stuff that we see and hear about remind me of the similar things that made me leave Syria.”

AlGhafari was a fan of former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But he will not support John McCain, who won the Republican nomination, because McCain supports keeping troops in Iraq.

And although AlGhafari said he likes former President Bill Clinton, he won’t vote for Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton for fear of creating a dynasty of two ruling families.

“It’s only a matter of 30 years, and we become a copycat of Syria or Egypt or Libya,” he said.

Fares Francis, 50, a Lebanese-American living in Lakeland, supports McCain. He said he thinks the Arizona senator will continue a Bush policy that forced the Syrian government to leave Lebanon after 30 years of occupation.

“I believe that President Bush did a lot for Lebanon,” Francis said.

Joe Rached, a Lebanese-American living in Lutz, said if it were not for the Iraq war, there would have been a dozen terrorist attacks in the United States. He said he will vote for whoever becomes the Republican nominee. National security is a top concern for him, and he thinks a Democrat would weaken the Army.

While many Arab-Americans keep a watchful eye on events in the Middle East and North Africa, polls show their other chief concerns are similar to those among the rest of the country: education, health care and the economy.

Husam Amin has stopped looking for a U.S. president who will end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 48-year-old Palestinian-American and Tampa real estate agent said he has seen too many road maps to peace and heard too many promises from politicians that ended in disappointment.

Amin, a registered Republican who is undecided on which candidate he will support, said he is focused on the economy and education.

“I feel my immediate issues are more domestic,” he said.

Laurice Hachem, a Lebanese-American living in Tampa, doesn’t know whom she’ll vote for. She’s a registered Republican with enormous respect for McCain but is leaning toward Obama. Hachem, in her mid 50s, said Obama is inspirational and reminds her of former President John F. Kennedy.

Arab-Americans are concerned with America’s damaged reputation abroad, polls show. Hachem thinks the next president should talk to Cuba’s new leader.

“I like the fact that he is willing to talk with other nations, not just people that we consider our allies,” she said. “I believe strongly that you should talk to your enemies.”

McCain’s Arab American problem

John McCain’s Arab-American problem

Arab-Americans are concentrated in swing states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. And the early signs are not good for McCain.

By Juan Cole

May. 28, 2008 | Not long ago, the John McCain campaign dropped a prominent Arab-American businessman from its Michigan state finance committee because of allegations that the man was an “agent” of Hezbollah. The charges, made by a right-wing blogger, were unsubstantiated, but fears of being associated with Arab terror caused Republican knees to jerk, and cost Ali Jawad his position. All politics, even national politics, is local, and Jawad’s abrupt dismissal may cost McCain many votes among Southeastern Michigan’s large Arab-American community. But more important, Arab-Americans across the country are looking for changes in domestic and international policy that McCain seems unwilling to pledge — and they are concentrated in swing states that he will need to win this fall. Does John McCain have a problem with Arab-American voters?

Recent polls show a tight race between either Democrat and McCain in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio, all states where Arab-Americans account for an appreciable percentage of the vote. Such polls have limited utility with November so many months away, but that it will be a close election in those key states seems clear. In a tight election, the votes of a well-placed minority — Arab-American votes — can be crucial.

Arab-Americans are a highly diverse group of up to 3.5 million persons, according to Arab American Institute figures. About three-quarters of them are Christian and a quarter Muslim. Eighty percent are U.S. citizens. Many are from families that have been in the U.S. for decades or even a century. They come from all over the Arab world, from Morocco to Egypt and Iraq to Yemen, but the traditional core of the community is Lebanese and Palestinian.

Because of their diversity, Arab-Americans face challenges in organizing as a coherent political force. They tend not to give money to political campaigns in the name of Arab-American causes. One activist in the community estimated that since 1990 pro-Israeli groups have outspent pro-Arab ones on political campaigns by about 60-to-1, with the pro-Arab organizations having given less than a million dollars in all that time.

Arab-Americans do, however, have some distinctive concerns in common. They are more likely to care about the Iraq war and the Arab-Israeli peace process than other Americans. They are also particularly sensitive to racial profiling and assaults on civil liberties.

That has put them at odds with the Bush administration and the Republican Party, and has contributed to a hard swing toward the Democrats. After a plurality voted for Bush in 2000, the community favored Kerry in 2004 and has been increasingly trending Democratic. About 40 percent have been consistently Democratic since 2000, but the proportion identifying themselves as Republicans nationally has fallen in the past eight years from 38 percent to 26 percent.

Arab-Americans are both very likely to vote — their turnout is 20 percent higher than that of the general population — and they are concentrated. Two-thirds of them live in just 10 states, including the swing states of Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. In Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, Arab-Americans have made up 2 percent of the electorate in recent elections. That sounds like a small proportion, but in a close race it can make a difference. In 2000, Bush won the Arab-American vote over Gore by 7.5 percentage points. Bush took Ohio that year by only 165,000 votes. He and Gore virtually tied in Florida in the popular vote.

The Arab-American presence is most significant in Michigan. An estimated 300,000 Arab-Americans reside in the southeastern portion of the state. More than a third of Michigan’s Arab-Americans have Lebanese ancestry; most of that population is Shiite. Another third of the state’s Arab-Americans are Iraqi, and many of those residents are Christian.

In other words, up to 5 percent of Michigan’s vote is Arab-American. The Democratic candidate has won the state in each of the last two presidential elections by no more than 200,000 votes. Recent polling suggests that in a head-to-head contest between John McCain and Barack Obama, the two would split the state down the middle. Many analysts believe that the Democrats cannot win in November without winning Michigan.

Prior to the Bush administration and the invasion of Iraq, the state’s Arab-American voters had traditionally split their vote, with slightly more voting Republican than Democrat. In 1990, they solidly supported Republican gubernatorial candidate John Engler and may have helped give him the margin of victory. But in this decade, like much of the Arab-American population nationally, they have had disagreements with the Bush administration.

John McCain has now exacerbated his problems with Michigan voters by offending the large Lebanese Shiite community. Ali Jawad, president of Armada Oil & Gas and founder of the Lebanese American Heritage Club, had been invited to a $2,300 a plate fundraiser for McCain in Orchard Lake, Mich., in late April, when alarmed calls started coming in for him from the McCain campaign inquiring about his alleged activities on behalf of Hezbollah, activities that he denies.

The blogger who made the accusations, Debbie Schlussel, did so on grounds of guilt by association. She charged, without proof, that Jawad was a “key agent of the terrorist group in the Detroit area.” She said that Jawad had met with Hezbollah party officials on a trip to Lebanon, and had visited Shiite villages like Bint Jbeil and Nabatiya that are politically dominated by Hezbollah. Jawad replied that he had met with a cross section of Lebanese politicians with the knowledge of the U.S. Embassy. Schlussel provided no evidence that Jawad had provided material support to Hezbollah.

Jawad is a native of Southern Lebanon and, like virtually all Lebanese Shiites, sees Hezbollah as a legitimate political party. As a Michigan-based contributing editor at Daily Kos has noted, “Lebanese in Dearborn view Hezbollah with much the same mix of distrust mixed with nationalist pride and identity that Catholic residents or former residents of IRA-controlled neighborhoods in Belfast or Derry view the IRA.” Indeed, Hezbollah has large numbers of seats in parliament and will form part of the national unity government under the just-concluded Doha accords. There is a difference between such a stance on Hezbollah’s role in Lebanese politics and support for terrorism. Jawad said in 2003, “Killing innocent people — we reject that … Hezbollah does not fit this category. It has protected its people.” In other words, Jawad, who says it is important to follow U.S. law, rejects terrorism.

When the McCain campaign threw Jawad under the bus, it admitted that it had done so because of the unsubstantiated “Hezbollah rumors.” Osama Siblani, president of the Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC), reacted angrily to Jawad’s dismissal at a recent press conference in Dearborn. “The Michigan Republican Party and the McCain campaign,” said Siblani, “need to be reminded that the blood of Arabs is red and the color of their money is green.” He emphasized the extensive philanthropy of Jawad, who came to this country in 1976 from southern Lebanon. “We do not want a president,” Siblani said, “who makes a decision … based on false information … This is an insult to every Arab-American and Muslim-American in the country.”

The dumping of Ali Jawad was hardly the first point of friction between McCain and the Arab-American community. The incident demonstrates the way in which the embrace by the GOP of elements of the Zionist right and fringes of Evangelical Christianity have made it hard to hold on to the growing Arab-American and Muslim-American vote. The minority of Arab-Americans who are Muslim have been disturbed at McCain’s constant use of the adjective “Islamic” when referring to terrorists. (Muslims use the word “Islamic” to refer to the ideals of their religion, and so might refer to a “Muslim criminal,” but an “Islamic criminal” would be a contradiction in terms.) McCain’s campaign says he will continue to use the word. (This obstinacy recalls his vow in 2000 to continue to use the word “gook” when referring to the Viet Cong, a term that offended Asian-Americans. At length McCain relented and dropped the slur.)

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a major Muslim-American lobbying group, slammed McCain for having said last year that he wanted the U.S. presidency to be in Christian hands, complaining that he was attempting to introduce a religious test for high office. Muslim-Americans were also disturbed that McCain sought the endorsement of evangelical preacher Rod Parsley, and that McCain had referred to him as a “spiritual guide.” Parsley has called for Christians to make war on Islam and terms Islam “a false religion.” Last week, when McCain repudiated both Parsley and John Hagee over their hate speech, CAIR applauded the Arizona senator, noting that he specifically complained about Parsley’s comments on Muslims. Whether McCain’s having distanced himself from the two hate-mongering reverends will be enough to repair his strained relations with Muslim-Americans has yet to be seen.

Ultimately, though, issues are more likely to drive Arab-Americans’ voting decisions than McCain’s missteps with the community. McCain is dedicated to keeping U.S. troops in Iraq and to fighting on until “victory.” He displays obvious partisanship toward the Israeli right, making clear his inability to play the role of honest broker in Israel’s negotiations with its Arab neighbors. His GOP has become hostage to anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate-mongers among the televangelists. These considerations disturb many American voters, but Arab-Americans above all.

My own conversations with some Facebook friends suggest Arab-Americans are already looking elsewhere. Hazem Tabbaa, a Michigan native now studying at the Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, slammed McCain for “criticizing Senator Barack Obama’s ‘negotiating with the enemy’ tactic.” He calls McCain a “war first politician.” He also has lingering resentments over McCain’s willingness to seek an endorsement from Hagee. He views McCain as “pretty much the same” as Bush. Laila Shereen, an Arab-American poet and digital artist, told me, “I think anyone concerned about social justice in the Middle East must necessarily support Obama.” Maybe that’s why Zogby polling has found that a strong majority of Arab-Americans now favor Obama.

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Absentee’s Property Laws = Discrimination

Most people who claim to know things about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have never heard of these laws, and why would they? Many “scholars” simply ignore the foundation of Israel as a nation and simply begin to talk about the anti-semitic nature of Arab culture and how Islam is unable to accept the freedoms of the West. The Absentee’s Property Laws are something that rival the Jim Crow Laws that used to be in place in the United States. I would argue even worse.

‘Absentees’ property’ laws were several laws which were first introduced as emergency ordinances issued by the Jewish leadership but which after the war were incorporated into the laws of Israel. These laws were passed in an effort to gain as much land from the indigenous people as possible while circumventing International Law. Here are the Absentee’s Property Laws as they passed and enforced :

FULL TEXT OF LAWS

So lets break this down piece by piece. The first section defines “absentee” as anyone who lived in British Mandate Palestine and held citizenship to any of the following countries :Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, SaudiArabia, Trans-Jordan, Iraq or the Yemen. It also extended this terminology to anyone who was in one of these countries or in any part of Palestine outside the area of Israel, or was a Palestinian citizen and left his ordinary place of residence in Palestine during, before or after Israel’s war of independence. Notice how this law did not apply to Immigrants or land owners residing in non-Arab countries. So if a British citizen had owned land in Palestine, he would not be subject to this law. People who lived in Palestine were, and we can assume a vast majority of them were of Arab ethnicity and from any number of different religions (at least 5 large ones). (Click Here for Story about land given back to British Owner)

The definition of “absentee” in the law was framed in such a way as to ensure that it applied to every Palestinian or resident in Palestine who had left his usual place of residence in Palestine for any place inside or outside the country after the adoption of the partition of Palestine resolution by the UN.

So these people had left their homes for numerous reasons during this time period. The reason cited most often by survivors of the time was for safety. There was, of course, a war going on in the immediate area and like all peace loving civilians, they fled to safer regions to protect their lives and the lives of their children. Can anyone blame them after hearing about the massacres at Deir Yassin, Al-Tantura, and the Lod/Ramla killings?

These people had their homes and land taken from them and put into the custody of the The Minister of Finance who can appoint inspectors to designate whether a house has an absent owner. Once declared absent every right an absentee had in any property shall pass automatically to the Custodian at the time of the vesting of the property; and the status of the Custodian shall be the same as was that of the owner of the property. Meaning that if you were Arab and not home (because a war perhaps) you no longer had any rights to your property. Furthermore:

The fact that the identity of an absentee is unknown shall not prevent his property from being absentees’ property, vested property, held property or released property.

This part was created to ensure that no knowledge or documentation would be necessary when confiscating the land.

Now we can move onto those Palestinians who chose not to leave their homes.

Where vested property of the category of immovable property is occupied by a person who, in the opinion of the Custodian, has no right to occupy it, the Custodian may confirm such fact by a certificate under his hand describing the property. The certificate shall have the effect of a judgment in favour of the Custodian for the expulsion of the occupier of the vested property.

So, even if you chose to stay in your home and tend to your land the Israeli government could arbitrarily expel you from your home and claim it under these laws.  Sub-Section A under this heading also states that any homes deemed to be immovable and built without the authorization of the Minister of Finance should be demolished (no matter if the home was built before the foundation of Israel).

Section 35 of the law states that any Israeli citizen who fails to report land that is not currently occupied by its owner is subject to two years imprisonment and a fine of 500 pounds (remember this is 1947-1951).

As a result, two million dunams were confiscated and given to the custodian, who later transferred the land to the development authority. This law created the novel citizenship category of “present absentees” (nifkadim nohahim), that is, Israeli Arabs who enjoyed all civil rights-including the right to vote in the Knesset elections-except one: the right to use and dispose of their property”. About 30,000-35,000 Palestinians became “present absentees” - persons present at the time but considered absent.

How much of Israel’s territory consists of land confiscated with the Absentee Property Law is uncertain and much disputed. Robert Fisk interviewed the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property, who estimates this could amount to up to 70% of the territory of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip

The absentee property played an enormous role in making Israel a viable state. In 1954, more than one third of Israel’s Jewish population lived on absentee property and nearly a third of the new immigrants (250,000 people) settled in urban areas abandoned by Arabs. Of 370 new Jewish settlements established between 1948 and 1953, 350 were on absentee property (Peretz, Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, 1958).

The Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law, 5713-1953 legalised expropriations (retroactively in many cases) for military purposes or for the establishment of (Jewish) settlements.

The law allows the Government to claim the property of lands which are not in the possession of its owner as of 1 April 1952. Article 2 (a) states:

Property in respect of which the Minister certifies by certificate under his hand–

(1) that on the 6th Nisan, 5712 (1st April, 1952) it was not in the possession of its owners; and

(2) that within the period between the 5th Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948) and the 6th Nisan, 5712 (Ist April 1952) it was used or assigned for purposes of essential development, settlement or security; and

(3) that it is still required for any of these purposes

The Prescription Law was first enacted in 1958 and amended in 1965. It repeals critical provisions of, and reverses British practices in relation to, the Ottoman Land Code (1858).

According to COHRE and BADIL (p. 44), the Prescription Law is one of the most critical to understanding the legal underpinnings of Israel’s acquisition of Palestinian lands. Although not readily apparent in the language of the law, the purpose behind this legislation was to enable Israel to claim as ‘State lands’ areas where Palestinians still predominated and where they could still assert their own claims on the land (for example, in the north of the country). The authors claim that this law, in conjunction with the Land (Settlement of Title) Ordinance (Amendment) Law, 5720-1960, the Land (Settlement of Title) Ordinance (New Version), 5729-1969 and the Land Law, 5729-1969, was designed to revise criteria related to the use and registration of Miri lands – one of the most prevalent types in Palestine – and to facilitate Israel’s acquisition of such land.

Under this law, farmers are required to submit documentation proving uninterrupted cultivation of designated plots of land

over a 15-year period (the ‘prescription’ period). Article 5 states:

The period within which a claim in respect of which an action has not been brought shall be prescribed (such period being hereinafter referred to as “the period of prescription”) shall be

(1) in the case of a claim not relating to land - seven years;

(2) in the case of a claim relating to land - fifteen years or, if the land has been registered in the land register after settlement of title in accordance with the Land (Settlement of Title) Ordinance(1), twenty-five years.

The law adds the proviso that lands purchased after 1 March 1943 would be subject to a 20-year verification period. The law also specifies a five-year hiatus between 1958 and 1963 that would not be counted toward this ‘prescription’ period. According to COHRE and BADIL, by 1963, much of the lands in question had still not been surveyed. Therefore, calculations of the requisite 20-year verification period were in effect halted, and the State was in a position to press its own claims to these lands. The authors consider that the Prescription Law had even more complex ramifications. For example, Israel decided that British aerial photographs of 1945 would be used to verify cultivation. Arab farmers who had not yet begun tilling their lands at the time the photographs were taken found they were by definition unable to meet the requisite 15-year ‘prescription’ period. Also, as Israel did not accept other evidence of cultivation, such as tax records, many Palestinians fell victim to a ‘Catch-22’: in the process of trying to establish their legal ownership they (retroactively) lost their lands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_Property_laws_in_Israel#The_.27Absentees_Property_Law.27

Here is a somewhat complete list of the villages taken over and demolished during the enforcement of these laws (ie: The past 60 years)

District of Acre

al-Amqa Arab al-Samniyya al-Bassa al-Birwa al-Damun Dayr al-Qassi al-Ghabisiyya Iqrit Iribbin, Khirbat Jiddin, Khirbat

al-Kabri Kafr Bir’im Kafr ‘Inan Kuwaykat al-Manshiyya al-Mansura Mi’ar al-Nabi Rubin al-Nahr al-Ruways

Suhmata al-Sumayriyya Suruh al-Tall Tarbikha Umm al-Faraj al-Zeeb

District of Baysan

Arab al-’Arida Arab al-Bawati Arab al-Safa al-Ashrafiyya al-Bira Danna Farwana al-Fatur al-Ghazzawiyya al-Hamidiyya

al-Hamra Jabbul Kafra Kawkab al-Hawa al-Khunayzir Masil al-Jizl al-Murassas Qumya al-Sakhina al-Samiriyya

Sirin Tall al-Shawk al-Taqa, Khirbat al-Tira Umm ‘Ajra Umm Sabuna, Khirbat Yubla Zab’a al-Zawiya, Khirbat

District of Beersheba

• al-Imara
• al-Jammama
• al-Khalasa

District of Gaza

Arab Suqrir Barbara Barqa al-Batani al-Gharbi al-Batani al-Sharqi Beit Daras Bayt ‘Affa Bayt Jirja Bayt Tima Bil’in Burayr Dayr Sunayd Dimra al-Faluja Hamama

Hatta Hiribya Huj Hulayqat Ibdis Iraq al-Manshiyya Iraq Suwaydan Isdud al-Jaladiyya al-Jiyya Julis al-Jura Jusayr Karatiyya Kawfakha

Kawkaba al-Khisas al-Masmiyya al-Kabira al-Masmiyya al-Saghira al-Muharraqa Najd Ni’ilya Qastina al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya al-Sawafir al-Shamaliyya al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya Simsim Summil Tall al-Turmus Yasur

District of Haifa

Abu Shusha Abu Zurayq Arab al-Fuqara Arab al-Nufay’at Arab Zahrat al-Dumayri Atlit Ayn Ghazal Ayn Hawd Balad al-Shaykh Barrat Qisarya Burayka al-Burj, Khirbat al-Butaymat Daliyat al-Rawha’ al-Dumun, Khirbat al-Ghubayya al-Fawqa al-Ghubayya al-Tahta Hawsha

Ijzim