Al-Tantura
Encyclopedia
Tantura was a Palestinian Arab fishing village located 8 kilometers northwest of Zikhron Ya'akov on the Mediterranean
coast of Israel
. It was built on the ruins of the ancient Phoenicia
n city of Dor
.
was the most southern settlement of the Phoenicians on the coast of Syria
and a center for the manufacture of Tyrian purple
, extracted from the murex
snail found there in abundance. Dor is first mentioned in the Egypt
ian Story of Wenamun
, as a port ruled by the Tjeker
prince Beder, where Wenamun (a priest of Amun
at Karnak
) stopped on his way to Byblos
and was robbed. According to the Book of Joshua
, Dor was an ancient royal city of the Canaanites commanding the heights of Dor whose king became an ally of Jabin
of Hazor
in the conflict with Joshua
. Dor is also mentioned in the Book of Judges
as a Canaanite city whose inhabitants were put to 'taskwork' when the area was allotted to the tribe of Manasseh
. In the Book of Kings
we are told that Dor was incorporated into David
's Israelite kingdom. In the 10th century BCE, it became the capital of the Heights of Dor under Solomon
, and was governed by his son-in-law, Ben-abinadab
as one of Solomon's commissariat districts.
Josephus Flavius in his Antiquities
(14:333) describes Dor as an unsatisfactory port where goods had to be transported by lighter
s from ships at sea. Dora was the city where Antiochus
, ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire
with the aid of Simon Maccabaeus
, laid siege to the usurper Trypho
. During Pompey
's invasion of Judea
Dora was razed, along with all the coastal towns, only to be rebuilt under Gabinius's
direction.
Dor was an important salt production site, as attested to by pools and channels dug along the coast. Many shipwrecks have been discovered in the waters off Dor. Underwater exploration of a Byzantine
wreck salvaged a medium-size boat constructed with iron nails. Based on coins recovered from the site, the boat dates to 665 CE, a decade after the Muslim conquest. Artifacts include several objects testifying to the practice of light-fishing.
By the mid-third century CE, the city had deteriorated to little more than a fishing village. Its importance rose from the 4th to the 7th century CE, when it became the center of a bishopric. Several bishops of Dor are mentioned in church records. The settlement migrated off the ancient tell to the area east of it, centering around the church complex, which served as a way-station for pilgrims traveling to the holy places. In 1950-1952, the church was excavated by J. Leibowitz, in 1979-1983 by C. Dauphin, and 1994 by S. Gibson and Dauphin. The village of Tantura, further south, was probably established after the church was abandoned in the early Arab period.
In the Middle Ages, a small fort surrounded by a moat was built on the southwestern promontory of the tell, overlooking the entrance to the southern bay. Dor has been identified with the Crusader principality of Merle
, although excavations at the site, known in Arabic as Khirbet el-Burj, indicate that the moat was dug later, in the 13th century.
and Acre.
In 1799, when Napoleon Bonaparte besieged Akko, he used the anchorage at Dor as a supply depot. Two archaeologists, Wachsmann and Rayeh, studied the Atlas of Jacotin, published in 1820, which portrayed the regions through which Napoleon's troops had marched, and concluded that Tantura was the spot where Napoleon camped on May 21, 1799. After the failure of his campaign, his troops retreated to Dor, where he hoped to evacuate by sea, but his navy failed to appear. To free up horses for carrying the wounded, he ordered heavy ordinance dumped in the bay. Artillery pieces, muskets and ammunition have been found in underwater surveys around Dor.
The British traveler James Silk Buckingham
, writing in 1821, described al-Tantura as a small village with a small port and a khan (caravanserai
). Mary Rogers, sister of the British vice-consul in Haifa, reported that in 1855 there were 30-40 houses in the village, with cattle and goats as the chief source of income.
In 1859 William McClure Thomson described Tantura/Dor in his travelogue:-
In 1884, Mordechai Bonstein, a Russian Jewish farmer pioneer from Rosh Pina moved to Tantura to farm a tract of land owned by Baron Edmond de Rothschild. Bonstein, his wife Haya, and their nine children, were the only Jews in the village. The farm was successful and the family maintained good relations with their Arab neighbors.
In 1891, Baron Rothschild financed the establishment of a bottle factory in Tantura, hoping to use the fine sand on the shore to manufacture glass bottles for the fledging wine industry in Zikhron Ya'akov. A building was constructed under the supervision of Meir Dizengoff
, a French glass specialist was brought in, dozens of workers were hired and three ships were purchased to transport raw material and bottles. However, the factory was abandoned in 1895 after a string of failures.
In a survey of Western Palestine in the late nineteenth century, Tantura was described as a village on the coast with a harbour located to the north, and a square, stone building used as a guest house for travellers (probably the khan referred to by Buckingham). The population, approximately 1,200, engaged in agriculture and conducted a small trade with Jaffa
. Tantura had a boys elementary school, built around 1889, and another school for girls, founded in 1937-38.
's land and population survey in 1945, the town had a population 1,490 and a total land area of 14,250 dunam
s.
There were two Islamic holy sites in the village, including a maqam (shrine) dedicated to an Abd ar-Rahman Sa'd ad-Din.
During the British Mandate the fish catch increased from 6 tons in 1928 to 1,622 tons in 1944. The major agricultural products were grain, vegetables, and fruit. In 1944/45 a total of 26 dunams was devoted to citrus and bananas, 6,593 to cereals and 287 dunums to orchards, mainly olives.
in the Partition Plan for the Jewish State. The village stood on a low limestone hill overlooking the shoreline of two small bays. The water was supplied from a well in the eastern part of the village. The al-Bab gate was in the southeast of the village. The Roman ruins were on the coast to the north with the hill of Umm Rashid to the south Some of the inhabitants were civil servants, working as policemen, custom officials and clerks at the Haifa Magistrates court. A paved road led to Haifa Highway. The village was one of the most developed in the region. Some residents of Tantura had been involved in the Arab Revolt
, and three were killed in a skirmish with the British near the village. At the beginning of the 1948 Palestine War
, the wealthier families fled to Haifa
. Approximately 1,200 remained in the village, continuing to tend their fields, orchards, and ply their trade as fishermen.
Tantura was part of an Arab enclave cutting off the road from Tel Aviv to Haifa. On May 9, 1948, a decision was made to "expel or subdue" the villages of Kafr Saba
, al-Tira
, Qaqun
, Qalansuwa and Tantura. On May 11, Ben-Gurion advised the Haganah to "focus on its primary task," which according to Ilan Pappe
was the bi'ur (lit. cleansing) of Palestine. According to Tiroshi Eitan, Tantura was ready to surrender in early May but not to relinquish its arms. The Alexandroni Brigade
launched an attack on Tantura under cover of darkness without waiting for the village to surrender.
of the Haganah
commanded by Moshe Carmel
in Operation Misparayim. After the fall of Haifa, Arab villages on the slopes of Mount Carmel
began attacking Jewish traffic on the main road to Haifa. The task of the Alexandroni Brigade was to reduce the Mount Carmel
pocket. Tantura was chosen as the starting point for this operation, codenamed Namal, which took place on the night of May 22–23. That night, Tantura was attacked and occupied by the Brigade's 33rd battalion
. The attack commenced with heavy machine gun fire, followed by an infantry attack from all landwards sides with an Israeli naval vessel blocking off any chance of escape to the sea. By 800hrs on May 23, the battle was over, encountering little resistance. According to an unsigned Haganah report, dozens of villagers were killed and 500 were taken prisoner (300 adult males and 200 women and children).
Most of the villagers fled to the nearby town of Fureidis
and territory controlled by the Arab League
in the Triangle
region near to what was to become the Green Line
. Women prisoners were taken to Fureidis. On May 31, 1948, Bechor Shitrit
, Minister of Minority Affairs of the Provisional government of Israel
, sought permission to evict the Tantura women from Fureidis due to overcrowding, lack of sanitation and the risk of information being passed to unconquered villages. A Ministry official, Ya’akov Epstein of Zikhron Ya'akov, who visited Tantura shortly after the operation, reported seeing bodies, but said nothing of a massacre. In 1998, Yihiya Yihiya published a book on Tantura recording the names of 52 dead. The occupation of the village was followed by looting. Some of the items recovered by the Haganah included 'one carpet, one gramophone ... one basket with cucumbers .... one goat'.
The male prisoners of war were held on the beach before being transferred to Zichron Ya’akov police station and put into labour battalions.
In 1964, the IDF released an official history of "The Alexandroni Brigade in the War of Independence" in which 11 pages were devoted to al-Tantura. There was no mention of any expulsion. In 2004, Alexandroni veterans acknowledged the forced expulsion.
Nahsholim
and Moshav
Dor
were built on land on the outskirts of al-Tantura. Jewish settlers initially moved into the abandoned Arab
houses in Tantura but left after building more suitable housing further down the coast. According to local legend, when bulldozers tried to knock down the local saint's tomb of Sheikh al-Majrami, the blades of the bulldozers broke. Kibbutz Nahsholim was established just southeast of the ancient tell. Moshav Dor was established by the southernmost bay. Kibbutz Nahsholim grows bananas, avocado and cotton, and raises fish in ponds. A plastics factory manufactures irrigation equipment. It also operates a beach resort.
's Center for Maritime Studies under the direction of Shelley Waschsmann and Yaakov Kahanov. The Tantura B hull was found resting on top of another shipwreck dating to the Roman period. Excavations at Tel Dor in 1986 unearthed an intact purple dye
manufacturing installation, based on dye extracted from murex
marine snails.
Katz originally received a grade of 97%. According to both Meyrav Wurmser
and Benny Morris, Katz's claims were wholly based on oral testimony, much of which was falsified. Morris found 14 different inaccuracies. Katz's presentation of the facts was also disputed by Israeli historian Yoav Gelber
. The veterans of the Alexandroni Brigade sued him for libel. After two days’ cross-examination in court, Katz signed a statement, retracted 12 hours later, saying:
The court disallowed Katz's attempt to retract his retraction, and ruled against him. He appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court but it declined to intervene. In the wake of this scandal, the University of Haifa suspended Katz's degree, inviting him to revise his thesis. The paper was sent out to five external examiners, a majority (3:2) of whom failed it. Katz was subsequently awarded a "non-research" MA.
In the Jerusalem Report, Morris doubts that what took place was a "massacre," and maintains that eyewitness statements made long after the event are no substitute for contemporaneous documentary evidence. Katz interviewed 20 Israelis and 20 Palestinians (some of whom were 5–7 years old in 1948). Morris believes that one village woman was raped, Alexandroni troops may have executed POWs and there may have been some looting, based on an army report that uses the Hebrew word "khabala" (sabotage).
During the trial in December 2000, it emerged that Katz's claim that Abu Fahmi, one of the witnesses, had told him the "army rounded up the villagers, lined them up against a wall and shot them", was incorrect. The court ordered Katz to hand over the tapes of his interviews; no such statement was found. On the contrary, Abu Fahmi stated repeatedly that "we did not see them killing after we raised our hands". According to Morris, it is telling that "no residents went on record in 1948 or any time before the 1990s to claim there had been a massacre." In August 1998, a former resident of the village, Mahmoud al Yihiya Yihiya, published a book about Tantura in which he describes the battle and names 52 villagers who died, but does not call it a massacre.
Despite proposals in 2004 to exhume bodies from a site between Nahsholim and Dor believed to be a mass grave, no such action has been taken.
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
coast of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. It was built on the ruins of the ancient Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
n city of Dor
Dor
Tel Dor , is an archeological site located on Israel's Mediterranean coast, about 30 km south of Haifa. Lying on a small headland at the north side of a protected inlet, it is identified with D-jr of Egyptian sources, Biblical Dor, and with Dor/Dora of Greek and Roman sources...
.
Antiquity
DorDor
Tel Dor , is an archeological site located on Israel's Mediterranean coast, about 30 km south of Haifa. Lying on a small headland at the north side of a protected inlet, it is identified with D-jr of Egyptian sources, Biblical Dor, and with Dor/Dora of Greek and Roman sources...
was the most southern settlement of the Phoenicians on the coast of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
and a center for the manufacture of Tyrian purple
Tyrian purple
Tyrian purple , also known as royal purple, imperial purple or imperial dye, is a purple-red natural dye, which is extracted from sea snails, and which was possibly first produced by the ancient Phoenicians...
, extracted from the murex
Murex
Murex is a genus of medium to large sized predatory tropical sea snails. These are carnivorous marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae, commonly calle "murexes" or "rock snails"...
snail found there in abundance. Dor is first mentioned in the Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian Story of Wenamun
Story of Wenamun
The Story of Wenamun is a literary text written in hieratic in the Late Egyptian language...
, as a port ruled by the Tjeker
Tjeker
The Tjekker or Tjeker were one of the Sea Peoples and are known mainly from the Story of Wenamun. The name tkr/skl has been transliterated variously as Tjekru, Tjekker, skl, Sikil, Djekker, etc. and they are thought to be the people who developed the port of Dor during the 12th century BCE from a...
prince Beder, where Wenamun (a priest of Amun
Amun
Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...
at Karnak
Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex—usually called Karnak—comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings, notably the Great Temple of Amun and a massive structure begun by Pharaoh Ramses II . Sacred Lake is part of the site as well. It is located near Luxor, some...
) stopped on his way to Byblos
Byblos
Byblos is the Greek name of the Phoenician city Gebal . It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic name of Jubayl and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades...
and was robbed. According to the Book of Joshua
Book of Joshua
The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and of the Old Testament. Its 24 chapters tell of the entry of the Israelites into Canaan, their conquest and division of the land under the leadership of Joshua, and of serving God in the land....
, Dor was an ancient royal city of the Canaanites commanding the heights of Dor whose king became an ally of Jabin
Jabin
Jabin is a Biblical name meaning 'discerner', or 'the wise'. It may refer to:* A king of Hazor, at the time of the entrance of Israel into Canaan , whose overthrow and that of the northern chief with whom he had entered into a confederacy against Joshua was the crowning act in the conquest of the...
of Hazor
Hazor
Hazor is the name of several places in the biblical and modern Israel:Biblical locations:* Tel Hazor, site of an ancient fortified city in the Upper Galilee, among the most important Caananite towns, and the largest ancient ruin in modern Israel and UNESCO World Heritage Site.* Hazor, A town in...
in the conflict with Joshua
Joshua
Joshua , is a minor figure in the Torah, being one of the spies for Israel and in few passages as Moses's assistant. He turns to be the central character in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua...
. Dor is also mentioned in the Book of Judges
Book of Judges
The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its title describes its contents: it contains the history of Biblical judges, divinely inspired prophets whose direct knowledge of Yahweh allows them to act as decision-makers for the Israelites, as...
as a Canaanite city whose inhabitants were put to 'taskwork' when the area was allotted to the tribe of Manasseh
Tribe of Manasseh
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Manasseh was one of the Tribes of Israel. Together with the Tribe of Ephraim, Manasseh also formed the House of Joseph....
. In the Book of Kings
Books of Kings
The Book of Kings presents a narrative history of ancient Israel and Judah from the death of David to the release of his successor Jehoiachin from imprisonment in Babylon, a period of some 400 years...
we are told that Dor was incorporated into David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
's Israelite kingdom. In the 10th century BCE, it became the capital of the Heights of Dor under Solomon
Solomon
Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
, and was governed by his son-in-law, Ben-abinadab
Abinadab
Abinadab may refer to:# A man of Kirjath-jearim widely identified as a Levite , in whose house the ark of the covenant was deposited after having been brought back from the land of the Philistines . It remained there twenty years, until it was at length removed by David . It has been argued that...
as one of Solomon's commissariat districts.
Josephus Flavius in his Antiquities
Antiquities of the Jews
Antiquities of the Jews is a twenty volume historiographical work composed by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the thirteenth year of the reign of Roman emperor Flavius Domitian which was around 93 or 94 AD. Antiquities of the Jews contains an account of history of the Jewish people,...
(14:333) describes Dor as an unsatisfactory port where goods had to be transported by lighter
Lighter (barge)
A lighter is a type of flat-bottomed barge used to transfer goods and passengers to and from moored ships. Lighters were traditionally unpowered and were moved and steered using long oars called "sweeps," with their motive power provided by water currents...
s from ships at sea. Dora was the city where Antiochus
Antiochus VII Sidetes
Antiochus VII Euergetes, nicknamed Sidetes , ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, reigned from 138 to 129 BC. He was the last Seleucid king of any stature....
, ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire
Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire was a Greek-Macedonian state that was created out of the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan.The Seleucid Empire was a major centre...
with the aid of Simon Maccabaeus
Simon Maccabaeus
Simon Thassi was the second son of Mattathias and thus a member of the Hasmonean family. The name "Thassi" has an uncertain meaning...
, laid siege to the usurper Trypho
Diodotus Tryphon
Diodotus Tryphon was king of the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom. As a general of the army, he promoted the claims of Antiochus VI Dionysus, the infant son of Alexander Balas, in Antioch after Alexander's death, but then in 142 deposed the child and himself seized power in Coele-Syria where Demetrius...
. During Pompey
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
's invasion of Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
Dora was razed, along with all the coastal towns, only to be rebuilt under Gabinius's
Aulus Gabinius
Aulus Gabinius, Roman statesman and general, and supporter of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, was a prominent figure in the later days of the Roman Republic....
direction.
Dor was an important salt production site, as attested to by pools and channels dug along the coast. Many shipwrecks have been discovered in the waters off Dor. Underwater exploration of a Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
wreck salvaged a medium-size boat constructed with iron nails. Based on coins recovered from the site, the boat dates to 665 CE, a decade after the Muslim conquest. Artifacts include several objects testifying to the practice of light-fishing.
By the mid-third century CE, the city had deteriorated to little more than a fishing village. Its importance rose from the 4th to the 7th century CE, when it became the center of a bishopric. Several bishops of Dor are mentioned in church records. The settlement migrated off the ancient tell to the area east of it, centering around the church complex, which served as a way-station for pilgrims traveling to the holy places. In 1950-1952, the church was excavated by J. Leibowitz, in 1979-1983 by C. Dauphin, and 1994 by S. Gibson and Dauphin. The village of Tantura, further south, was probably established after the church was abandoned in the early Arab period.
In the Middle Ages, a small fort surrounded by a moat was built on the southwestern promontory of the tell, overlooking the entrance to the southern bay. Dor has been identified with the Crusader principality of Merle
Merle
Merle may refer to:*A name for the Common Blackbird, or any of the varieties of Icterids of which the male is predominantly black*Merle , a pattern in dogs’ coats*MS Merle, a ferry formerly operated by Belfast Freight Ferries...
, although excavations at the site, known in Arabic as Khirbet el-Burj, indicate that the moat was dug later, in the 13th century.
Ottoman era
Tantura rose in importance in the mid-18th century with the increased demand for cotton in Europe. Dhaher al-Omar carried out a policy of expansion of trade, increasing the capacity of the port at Tantura, as well as those of HaifaHaifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
and Acre.
In 1799, when Napoleon Bonaparte besieged Akko, he used the anchorage at Dor as a supply depot. Two archaeologists, Wachsmann and Rayeh, studied the Atlas of Jacotin, published in 1820, which portrayed the regions through which Napoleon's troops had marched, and concluded that Tantura was the spot where Napoleon camped on May 21, 1799. After the failure of his campaign, his troops retreated to Dor, where he hoped to evacuate by sea, but his navy failed to appear. To free up horses for carrying the wounded, he ordered heavy ordinance dumped in the bay. Artillery pieces, muskets and ammunition have been found in underwater surveys around Dor.
The British traveler James Silk Buckingham
James Silk Buckingham
James Silk Buckingham was an English author, journalist and traveller.He was born at Flushing near Falmouth, the son of a farmer, and had a limited education. His youth was spent at sea, and in 1797 he was captured by the French and held as a prisoner of war at Corunna...
, writing in 1821, described al-Tantura as a small village with a small port and a khan (caravanserai
Caravanserai
A caravanserai, or khan, also known as caravansary, caravansera, or caravansara in English was a roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the day's journey...
). Mary Rogers, sister of the British vice-consul in Haifa, reported that in 1855 there were 30-40 houses in the village, with cattle and goats as the chief source of income.
In 1859 William McClure Thomson described Tantura/Dor in his travelogue:-
'Tantura merits very little attention. It is a sad and sickly hamlet of wretched huts on a naked sea-beach, with a marshy flat between it and the base of the eastern hills. The sheikh’s residence and the public menzûl for travellers are the only respectable houses, Dor never could have been a large city, for there are no remains. The artificial tell, with a fragment of the Kùsr standing like a column upon it, was probably the most ancient site. In front of the present village and five small islets, by the aid of which an artificial harbour could easily be constructed. The entrance to which would be by the inlet at the foot of the Kùsr; and should “Dor and her towns” ever rise again into wealth and importance such a harbour will assuredly be made'.
In 1891, Baron Rothschild financed the establishment of a bottle factory in Tantura, hoping to use the fine sand on the shore to manufacture glass bottles for the fledging wine industry in Zikhron Ya'akov. A building was constructed under the supervision of Meir Dizengoff
Meir Dizengoff
Meir Dizengoff was a Zionist politician and the first mayor of Tel Aviv.-Biography:Meir Dizengoff was born in 1861 in the village of Akimovici near Orgeyev, Bessarabia. In 1878, his family moved to Kishinev, where he graduated from high school and studied at the polytechnic school...
, a French glass specialist was brought in, dozens of workers were hired and three ships were purchased to transport raw material and bottles. However, the factory was abandoned in 1895 after a string of failures.
In a survey of Western Palestine in the late nineteenth century, Tantura was described as a village on the coast with a harbour located to the north, and a square, stone building used as a guest house for travellers (probably the khan referred to by Buckingham). The population, approximately 1,200, engaged in agriculture and conducted a small trade with Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
. Tantura had a boys elementary school, built around 1889, and another school for girls, founded in 1937-38.
British Mandate period
In 1922, al-Tantura had a population of 722 inhabitants, increasing to 953 according to the British Mandate census in 1931. In Sami HadawiSami Hadawi
Sami Hadawi was a Palestinian scholar and author. He is known for documenting the effects of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on the Arab population in Palestine and published statistics for individual villages prior to Israel's establishment. Hadawi worked as a land specialist until he was exiled from...
's land and population survey in 1945, the town had a population 1,490 and a total land area of 14,250 dunam
Dunam
A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...
s.
There were two Islamic holy sites in the village, including a maqam (shrine) dedicated to an Abd ar-Rahman Sa'd ad-Din.
During the British Mandate the fish catch increased from 6 tons in 1928 to 1,622 tons in 1944. The major agricultural products were grain, vegetables, and fruit. In 1944/45 a total of 26 dunams was devoted to citrus and bananas, 6,593 to cereals and 287 dunums to orchards, mainly olives.
1948 war
In 1948 al-Tantura was within the area designated by the United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
in the Partition Plan for the Jewish State. The village stood on a low limestone hill overlooking the shoreline of two small bays. The water was supplied from a well in the eastern part of the village. The al-Bab gate was in the southeast of the village. The Roman ruins were on the coast to the north with the hill of Umm Rashid to the south Some of the inhabitants were civil servants, working as policemen, custom officials and clerks at the Haifa Magistrates court. A paved road led to Haifa Highway. The village was one of the most developed in the region. Some residents of Tantura had been involved in the Arab Revolt
Arab Revolt
The Arab Revolt was initiated by the Sherif Hussein bin Ali with the aim of securing independence from the ruling Ottoman Turks and creating a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen.- Background :...
, and three were killed in a skirmish with the British near the village. At the beginning of the 1948 Palestine War
1948 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war refers to the events in the British Mandate of Palestine between the United Nations vote on the partition plan on November 30, 1947, to the end of the first Arab-Israeli war on July 20, 1949.The war is divided into two phases:...
, the wealthier families fled to Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
. Approximately 1,200 remained in the village, continuing to tend their fields, orchards, and ply their trade as fishermen.
Tantura was part of an Arab enclave cutting off the road from Tel Aviv to Haifa. On May 9, 1948, a decision was made to "expel or subdue" the villages of Kafr Saba
Kafr Saba
Kafr Saba was a Palestinian-Arab village famous for its shrine dating to the Mamluk period and for a history stretching back for more than a millennium...
, al-Tira
Al-Tira (Haifa)
al-Tira was a Palestinian town located 7 kilometres south of Haifa.It was made up of five khirbets, including Khirbat al-Dayr where lie the ruins of St. Brocardus monastery and a cave complex with vaulted tunnels.-History:...
, Qaqun
Qaqun
Qaqun was a Palestinian Arab village located northwest of the city of Tulkarm at the only entrance to Mount Nablus from the coastal Sharon plain....
, Qalansuwa and Tantura. On May 11, Ben-Gurion advised the Haganah to "focus on its primary task," which according to Ilan Pappe
Ilan Pappé
Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK, director of the university's European Centre for Palestine Studies, co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies, and political activist...
was the bi'ur (lit. cleansing) of Palestine. According to Tiroshi Eitan, Tantura was ready to surrender in early May but not to relinquish its arms. The Alexandroni Brigade
Alexandroni Brigade
The Alexandroni Brigade is an Israel Defense Forces brigade that fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Along with the 7th Armoured Brigade both units had 139 killed during the first battle of Latrun - Operation Ben Nun Alef .The unit is currently a reserve unit.-Katz controversy:In 1998, Teddy Katz...
launched an attack on Tantura under cover of darkness without waiting for the village to surrender.
Operation Namal
The British were in control of the Haifa port area until April 23, 1948. The rest of the city fell to the Carmeli BrigadeBarak Armored Brigade
The 188th "Barak" Armored Brigade is an Israeli armored brigade, subordinate to Israel's Northern Regional Command. The symbol of the Barak Armor Brigade is a shield with a red border bearing a sword against a blue and white background featuring the Haifa coastline background and a sword on it...
of the Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
commanded by Moshe Carmel
Moshe Carmel
Moshe Carmel was an Israeli soldier and politician who served as Minister of Transportation for eight years.-Background:Born in Mińsk Mazowiecki in the Russian Empire , Carmel emigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1924 when he was 13 years old. He was a founding member of kibbutz Na'an, and was...
in Operation Misparayim. After the fall of Haifa, Arab villages on the slopes of Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel ; , Kármēlos; , Kurmul or جبل مار إلياس Jabal Mar Elyas 'Mount Saint Elias') is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...
began attacking Jewish traffic on the main road to Haifa. The task of the Alexandroni Brigade was to reduce the Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel ; , Kármēlos; , Kurmul or جبل مار إلياس Jabal Mar Elyas 'Mount Saint Elias') is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...
pocket. Tantura was chosen as the starting point for this operation, codenamed Namal, which took place on the night of May 22–23. That night, Tantura was attacked and occupied by the Brigade's 33rd battalion
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...
. The attack commenced with heavy machine gun fire, followed by an infantry attack from all landwards sides with an Israeli naval vessel blocking off any chance of escape to the sea. By 800hrs on May 23, the battle was over, encountering little resistance. According to an unsigned Haganah report, dozens of villagers were killed and 500 were taken prisoner (300 adult males and 200 women and children).
Most of the villagers fled to the nearby town of Fureidis
Fureidis
Fureidis is an Israeli Arab town in the Haifa District of Israel. It received local council status in 1952.-History:Fureidis was established in the 19th century. The name is believed to come from the Arabic , meaning little Garden of Eden, borrowed from the Persian paradise...
and territory controlled by the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
in the Triangle
Triangle (Israel)
The Triangle , formerly referred to as the Little Triangle, is a concentration of Israeli Arab towns and villages adjacent to the Green Line, located in the eastern Sharon plain among the Samarian foothills; this area is located within the easternmost boundaries of both the Center District and...
region near to what was to become the Green Line
Green Line (Israel)
Green Line refers to the demarcation lines set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbours after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War...
. Women prisoners were taken to Fureidis. On May 31, 1948, Bechor Shitrit
Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit
Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit was an Israeli politician, minister and the only signatory of the Israeli declaration of independence to have been born in the country...
, Minister of Minority Affairs of the Provisional government of Israel
Provisional government of Israel
The provisional government of Israel was the temporary cabinet which governed Israel from shortly before independence until the formation of the first government in March 1949 following the first Knesset elections in January that year....
, sought permission to evict the Tantura women from Fureidis due to overcrowding, lack of sanitation and the risk of information being passed to unconquered villages. A Ministry official, Ya’akov Epstein of Zikhron Ya'akov, who visited Tantura shortly after the operation, reported seeing bodies, but said nothing of a massacre. In 1998, Yihiya Yihiya published a book on Tantura recording the names of 52 dead. The occupation of the village was followed by looting. Some of the items recovered by the Haganah included 'one carpet, one gramophone ... one basket with cucumbers .... one goat'.
The male prisoners of war were held on the beach before being transferred to Zichron Ya’akov police station and put into labour battalions.
In 1964, the IDF released an official history of "The Alexandroni Brigade in the War of Independence" in which 11 pages were devoted to al-Tantura. There was no mention of any expulsion. In 2004, Alexandroni veterans acknowledged the forced expulsion.
Nahsholim and Dor
After the war, KibbutzKibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
Nahsholim
Nahsholim
Nahsholim is a kibbutz and beach resort in northern Israel. Located near Zikhron Ya'akov, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof HaCarmel Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 399....
and Moshav
Moshav
Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second aliyah...
Dor
Dor, Hof HaCarmel
Dor is a moshav in northern Israel. Located near Zikhron Ya'akov, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof HaCarmel Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 343...
were built on land on the outskirts of al-Tantura. Jewish settlers initially moved into the abandoned Arab
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
houses in Tantura but left after building more suitable housing further down the coast. According to local legend, when bulldozers tried to knock down the local saint's tomb of Sheikh al-Majrami, the blades of the bulldozers broke. Kibbutz Nahsholim was established just southeast of the ancient tell. Moshav Dor was established by the southernmost bay. Kibbutz Nahsholim grows bananas, avocado and cotton, and raises fish in ponds. A plastics factory manufactures irrigation equipment. It also operates a beach resort.
Marine archaeology
A 9th century wreck known as Tantura B, most likely an Arab trading vessel, was discovered in shallow water off the Tantura coast. Excavations were conducted from 1994 to 1996 by the Institute for Nautical Archaeology (Texas A&M University) and the University of HaifaUniversity of Haifa
The University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.The University of Haifa was founded in 1963 by Haifa mayor Abba Hushi, to operate under the academic auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
's Center for Maritime Studies under the direction of Shelley Waschsmann and Yaakov Kahanov. The Tantura B hull was found resting on top of another shipwreck dating to the Roman period. Excavations at Tel Dor in 1986 unearthed an intact purple dye
Royal Purple
Royal Purple is an American manufacturer which produces lubricants for automotive, industrial, marine, motorcycle and racing use. It is known primarily for its line of Royal Purple Motor Oil products for use in gasoline and diesel engines...
manufacturing installation, based on dye extracted from murex
Murex
Murex is a genus of medium to large sized predatory tropical sea snails. These are carnivorous marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae, commonly calle "murexes" or "rock snails"...
marine snails.
Massacre allegations
Israeli journalist Amir Gilat published the story of an alleged massacre in Tantura based on a master's thesis submitted to the University of Haifa by a graduate student named Theodore Katz. In a paper on The Exodus of the Arabs from the Villages at the foot of Mount Carmel, Katz claimed Israeli forces killed 240 Arabs from Tantura during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. Katz himself did not use the word massacre, although other scholars were quick to use this terminology. The Alexandroni veterans protested and Gilat wrote a follow-up piece in which they flatly denied that a massacre had occurred.Katz originally received a grade of 97%. According to both Meyrav Wurmser
Meyrav Wurmser
Meyrav Wurmser is an Israeli-born, American scholar of the Arab world. She is married to Swiss-American David Wurmser, former Middle East Adviser to US Vice President Dick Cheney. She is also a Senior Fellow at the US think tank, the Hudson Institute....
and Benny Morris, Katz's claims were wholly based on oral testimony, much of which was falsified. Morris found 14 different inaccuracies. Katz's presentation of the facts was also disputed by Israeli historian Yoav Gelber
Yoav Gelber
Yoav Gelber is a professor of history at the University of Haifa, and was formerly a visiting professor at The University of Texas at Austin....
. The veterans of the Alexandroni Brigade sued him for libel. After two days’ cross-examination in court, Katz signed a statement, retracted 12 hours later, saying:
"After checking and re-checking the evidence, it is clear to me now, beyond any doubt, that there is no basis whatsoever for the allegation that the Alexandroni Brigade, or any other fighting unit of the Jewish forces, committed killing of people in Tantura after the village surrendered."
The court disallowed Katz's attempt to retract his retraction, and ruled against him. He appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court but it declined to intervene. In the wake of this scandal, the University of Haifa suspended Katz's degree, inviting him to revise his thesis. The paper was sent out to five external examiners, a majority (3:2) of whom failed it. Katz was subsequently awarded a "non-research" MA.
In the Jerusalem Report, Morris doubts that what took place was a "massacre," and maintains that eyewitness statements made long after the event are no substitute for contemporaneous documentary evidence. Katz interviewed 20 Israelis and 20 Palestinians (some of whom were 5–7 years old in 1948). Morris believes that one village woman was raped, Alexandroni troops may have executed POWs and there may have been some looting, based on an army report that uses the Hebrew word "khabala" (sabotage).
During the trial in December 2000, it emerged that Katz's claim that Abu Fahmi, one of the witnesses, had told him the "army rounded up the villagers, lined them up against a wall and shot them", was incorrect. The court ordered Katz to hand over the tapes of his interviews; no such statement was found. On the contrary, Abu Fahmi stated repeatedly that "we did not see them killing after we raised our hands". According to Morris, it is telling that "no residents went on record in 1948 or any time before the 1990s to claim there had been a massacre." In August 1998, a former resident of the village, Mahmoud al Yihiya Yihiya, published a book about Tantura in which he describes the battle and names 52 villagers who died, but does not call it a massacre.
Despite proposals in 2004 to exhume bodies from a site between Nahsholim and Dor believed to be a mass grave, no such action has been taken.
Ilan Pappe's support of Katz's opinion
Historian Ilan Pappé continues to stand by Katz and his thesis, and has challenged the Israeli veterans to take him to court because he has evidence that the massacre occurred.See also
- List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
- List of massacres committed prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
- Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War
- List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict
- New HistoriansNew HistoriansThe New Historians are a loosely-defined group of Israeli historians who have challenged traditional versions of Israeli history, including Israel's role in the Palestinian Exodus in 1948 and Arab willingness to discuss peace. The term was coined in 1988 by one of the leading New Historians, Benny...
External links
- Benny Morris on Katz controversy
- Yoav Gelber, Palestine 1948 about Tantura events.
- Documents gathered by Dan Censor on Tantura Affairs quoted in Yoav Gelber, Palestine 1948, 2006.
- Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3, (Spring, 2001), pp. 5–18: Al Wali The Tantura Massacre
- Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3, (Spring, 2001), pp. 19–39: The Tantura Case in Israel: The Katz Research and Trial by Ilan Pappe