Galilee: a geo-political frontier

Galilee (Hagalil in Hebrew, al-Jalil in Arabic), is a series of limestone ridges stretching generally from east to west. Running south from the Israeli–Lebanese border in the north, the terrain of Upper Galilee rises to an altitude of over 1,200 metres (4,000 ft) at Jabal al-Jarmak (Mount Meron in Hebrew). Further to the south the hills grow gentler, edging down into the softer landscapes of Lower Galilee, where they are often separated by broad, fertile valleys.

Some of these valleys have been inhabited for as long as 200,000 years. Replete with archaeological sites representing most periods from the Late Bronze to the present (see Shmueli, Sofer and Keliot 1983, chapter 2), Lower Galilee was a Palestinian rural heartland at the eve of the Zionist settlement of Palestine. Its Palestinian population grew considerably at or about the turn of the twentieth century (Ben-Arieh and Oren 1983:350).

Compared with other parts of the country, the Palestinian population of Lower Galilee experienced relatively little change following the 1948 war and the establishment of Israel. A motorist travelling on the network of modern roads constructed in the 1980s is exposed to a jigsaw puzzle of hitherto isolated Palestinian hill-top villages with scattered, individually cultivated plots.

Palestinian villagers in Lower Galilee as well as elsewhere in Israel now mostly work in the lower sections of the Israeli labour market. Those who persist with agriculture grow vegetables and cereals in the flatter parts, deciduous fruit trees in more elevated areas.

The ridge lying furthest to the south of Lower Galilee is The Nazareth Hills – a structure rising between 350 and 550 metres above sea level.