The Location of Ras Abu Ammar | Ras Abu Ammar | The Ethnic Cleansing of Ras Abu Ammar

In 1841, Edward Robinson, a professor of Biblical Literature at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, embarked on a journey to Palestine. His goal was not to document the existence of the land’s indigenous inhabitants but to identify biblical locations and confirm the geographical accuracy of the Holy Scriptures. Despite this, Robinson’s work inadvertently highlighted a fundamental truth: Palestine was not an empty land waiting to be settled, but a region rich in history, populated by communities whose presence stretches back centuries.

Robinson’s observations are detailed in his work, where he mentions Er-Ras, noting that from this location, “… the whole course of the great Wady could be traced, as it passes down S. W. by Kulonieh and east of Kustul and Soba. Near at hand, Wady el-Werd was seen, here also a deep rugged valley, running nearly West by the village el-Welejeh; and uniting with the former valley just beyond the village el-Kabu, among steep rocky mountains. Below this junction, the great valley takes the name of Wady Isma’in (Isma’il); bends W. S. W. through a ridge of higher land; and, issuing upon the western plain under the name of Wady es-Surar, turns N. W. and runs through the plain to the sea near Yebna; where at last it is called Wady Rubin.”

His detailed mapping of valleys, villages, and natural landmarks, while focused on biblical locations, also documents a land that was far from empty. The valleys, villages like el-Welejeh, el-Kabu, and Yebna, and the watercourses traversed were integral to the life and movement of the land’s inhabitants.

Similarly, Guerin, in his 1869 work, offers another passing observation: “At twelve-thirty, we continued our march westward, and at times in a southwesterly direction. At one-thirty, beyond Wad-beit-sakaya, I was shown a small village perched on a mountain, whose elevated position had earned it the name Er-Ras — that is, ‘the Head’ or ‘the Summit.’” While his intent, like Robinson’s, was not to document the indigenous populations or their histories, his mention of Er-Ras (likely Er-Ram) further reinforces the idea of a land that was inhabited and culturally rich long before the 20th century.

Neither Robinson nor Guerin set out to document the history or existence of the local populations. Their work was rooted in a Western academic tradition, where the Middle East was often seen as a field for exploration, not a land with its own dynamic history. However, in their efforts to explore biblical geography, they inadvertently documented the presence of longstanding communities in Palestine, thus capturing part of our ancestral claim to the land.

Their 19th-century writings remind us that Palestine has been home to vibrant communities for centuries, with roots that go back far beyond the modern political developments of the 20th century. The land was not a blank slate in 1948, as zionists would have you believe, but a region rich in heritage, inhabited and shaped by its people for generations.

The documentation by Robinson and Guerin, while not centered on indigenous populations, offers valuable insights into the continuity of human presence in Palestine, affirming our ancient connection to this land — a connection that predates 1948 by more than a century.

We know Ras Abu Ammar was ethnically cleansed in 1948, but the study of Palestine was done by “Western Powers” for years. German, British, Frenach and Ottoman sources made it so that we are able to understand how the evolution happened

In 1945, Ras Abu ‘Ammar had a population of 620 Muslims and controlled 8,313 dunams of land nestled in the hills southwest of Jerusalem. The village’s agricultural life was shaped by its rugged topography and Mediterranean climate. Of the cultivated land, 925 dunams were planted with trees — almost certainly olive groves, as was typical for the hill villages of the Jerusalem district. Another 2,791 dunams were devoted to cereal crops, while just 40 dunams were classified as built-up residential area, reflecting the compact nature of the village. The remaining 4,557 dunams were considered uncultivable. No land was allocated to citrus, bananas, or irrigated orchards, consistent with Ras Abu ‘Ammar’s limited access to water and its reliance on drought-resistant crops like olives and wheat — the lifeblood of subsistence in the central highlands of Palestine.

In 1883 Ras (Abu ‘A m m a r) (L u). — A large stone village on a spur, with a fine spring in the valley to the north-west. The hill has only a little scrub on it, but the valley, which is open and rather ilat, has olives in it.

Year	Men (Able-bodied)	Men	Women	Total	Notes
1879	92	—	—	—	9 houses noted; listed under Hebron District by the German ZDPV
1883	70
1896	93	—	—	279	Source: Deutscher Palästina-Verein
1922		169	170	339	British Census: “339 Mohammedans”
1931	—	247	241	488	Includes nearby areas: ʿAqqūr and ʿAyn Hūbīn
1945	—		—	620	Population listed in official British statistics
1948	—		—	719	Last known figure before Ethnic Cleansing

This narrative is important to note, especially in counteracting the long-standing claim that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land.” This myth, or one of its iterations, has existed since at least the 1830s and persisted into the 20th century and beyond. It has often been used to justify the colonization and settlement of Palestine by foreign powers. Winston Churchill’s famous quote, “the Jews made the desert bloom,” is frequently cited as a reference to the notion that the land was barren and empty, ready to be transformed by new settlers.

These claims were not in good faith; they were the precursors of the genocidal rhetoric that exists today and that started not in 1948 but well before that and continues to flourish, assisted by Western support to the white colonialists’ project in my ancestral land.