Bayt 'Itab

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1 Bayt 'Itab
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[edit] Bayt 'Itab

Bayt 'Itab (Arabic: بيت عطاب‎) was a Palestinian village that was captured by Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

What was once a thriving village inhabited by the famous Lahham family (which at one point in the 19th century controlled as much as 24 neighbouring villages in the Jerusalem area), was completely demolished.

The remains of a house.

Bayt 'Itab

District

Jerusalem, Israel

Location

Part of Jerusalem

Israeli occupation date

October 21st 1948

Israeli military operation

ha-Har

Israeli attacking brigade

n/a

Remaining population of Arabs after occupation

Remaining structures after occupation

Beit 'Itab was completely obliterated with the exception of some house rubble left behind.

Population

19th century	1931	1945
700	606	540

Number of houses

1931: 187

Historical names

Caananite name	n/a
Roman name	Enadab
Crusader name	Bethahatap

Israeli locality

Jerusalem

Public structures

Beit 'Itab contains the ruins of an old Crusader fortress.

A contrasting opinion of the history of Bayt 'Itab is offered by Meron Benvenisti who writes:

Arab settlement that predates and outlasted the Crusader conquest have not been considered worthy of study or mention except in the context of "the Crusader period," an ascription that itself is often as not fabricated. In the Jerusalem Hills lie remains of the village of Beit `Atab, formerly the capital of the Arqub district and seat of its ruler, Sheik ´Othman al-Lahaam. This sheik conducted a bloody war against Sheik Mustafa Abu Ghosh, whose capital and fortified seat was in the village of Suba. The long history of Beit ´Atab and the tale of the wars of the Quays and Yaman have been recounted at length in many books, and British consul James Finn (mid-nineteenth century) left a particularly vivid description of this village and its houses, both ancient and new. But there is no mention of any of this in Israeli guidebooks, save for the routine remark, "destroyed in the War for Independence." By contrast, the guidebook makes sure to inform its readers that "it is almost certain that its Arab name, Beit ´Atab, is a corruption of its Latin name, Atap, meaning a small fortress," and at the site there are "remains of ancient structures, apparently from a Crusader farm." The whole Crusader connection is a fabrication, since the sole historical mention of this settlement is a single reference to it in 1161 as a small village whose inhabitants are local people (i.e., not Crusaders). Nowhere is there any mention of its being a Crusader "fortress or farm," although its name appears (in a fractured Latin transliteration of its Arabic name) on a list of holdings -populated by Arabs- of a knight of Flemish origin. The mention of a place-name on a deed of ownership is sufficient data for its inclusion in the historical account, from the point of view of the conquerors, whereas the lives of generations of ordinary people who lived in Beit ´Atab are of no importance and their material culture is dismissed as "primitive". In a chapter named "The Convenience of the Crusades", in the book "Sacred Landscape", 2002, (p. 301)