The Valley, 2008

The images of The Valley were taken in 2007 in the village Arab al-Shibli in Lower Galilee and its lands.

On 28 October 1957 twenty-eight honourables of the village Arab al-Shibli wrote a letter to Mr Elisha Soltz, the Israeli military governor in Nazareth . In this letter they made three requests:

 1. To return their lands, build an asphalt road to the village, and supply it with water and electricity.

2. To issue an order to transfer the money that was collected from the village people to build a school, in order that they may realize this project.

3. To allow the building of houses in the village and to add the name of the village to the map of the country, the holy homeland map as they wrote.

In that letter the village representatives explained their current situation: they had a good relation with their Jewish neighbours, the people of Kfar Tavor, and the Jewish district commander before the 1948 war. At that time the two sides made an agreement providing that the people of Arab al-Shibli and their Jewish neighbours would keep relations brotherly and refrain from racial segregation. Both sides would protect each other after the war whether it was within an Arab or a Jewish state. This agreement was signed by the representative of Arab al-Shibli, the representative of Kfar Tavor, and the Jewish district commander.

In 1950, two years after the war and the establishment of the Israeli state, however, the men of Arab al-Shibli were requested to meet at Kaduri School with the Israeli military governor, the official in charge of absentee property, and the headmaster of Kaduri School . They were asked to exchange lands for one year: the good lands on the west side of Wadi al-Midy that were officially owned by the people who had stayed in the village, for the fallow lands of the refugees from the village on the east side of Wadi al-Midy which had been appropriated by the Israeli state. The village people accepted and an agreement was signed in three copies. Each party received their own copy, but the Israeli district commander asked to have the village copy in order to keep it safe. Time passed and the other side refused to give back the lands. The Israeli district commander denied the agreement. The village people were asked to keep quiet and they did.

In 1952 things became worse, people from the village were arrested and people were not allowed to leave the village.

In 1954 the state official in charge of absentee property came to the village and claimed the lands that had belonged to the refugees and were given to the village people in the agreement of 1950.

In 1957, when the village people asked for permission to build houses in their village their request was rejected with the argument that their village didn’t exist on the state map.

Also, the transference of the money, 3000 Lira, that had been collected through the office of the Israeli ministry of finance in Nazareth from the village people, to build a school instead of renting spaces in the village, was denied and the project was not realized.

The letter ended reminding Mr Elisha Soltz, the Israeli military governor in Nazareth, that the village was now named after one of the seven families that had been living there already during the time of the British Mandate, the Shibli family. The relations between the different families had always been problematic. The Shibli family, they wrote, was the family that had remained in Israel after the war, and they didn’t want to keep the original name of the village, Arab al-Sbaih.

 ©Ahalm Shibli, Palestine