Zemer (, ) is an

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

local council in the Central District of

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. It is located in the

Arab Triangle The Triangle (, ''HaMeshulash''; , ''al-Muthallath''), 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 foot ...

area, between Baqa al-Gharbiyye and Bat Hefer on Road 574. Zemer is the result of a merger of four villages – Bir al-Sika, Ibtan, Marja and Yama - in 1988.

History

Before the Common Era

Archaeological work in Yama brought to light settlement remains ranging from the

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, a Neolithic culture centered in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant, dating to years ago, that is, 8800–6500 BC. It was Type site, typed by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon ...

(PPNB) to the Ottoman period. At Ibtan,

potsherd This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

s dating from the

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

, Roman and

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

period have been found. Middle

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

II findings from Yama have been tentatively identified to belong to the ancient site of Yaham. Yaham was mentioned in

Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...

sources regarding

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

Thutmose III Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, (1479–1425 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He is regarded as one of the greatest warriors, military commanders, and milita ...

and

Shoshenq I Hedjkheperre Setepenre Shoshenq I (Egyptian ''ššnq''; reigned )—also known as Shashank or Sheshonk or Sheshonq Ifor discussion of the spelling, see Shoshenq—was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Egy ...

. The 15th century BCE annals describing the campaign of Thutmose III against a coalition of

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite city-states recount how the pharaoh camped at Yaham before marching on through the pass of Aruna (today's

Wadi Ara Wadi Ara (, ) or Nahal 'Iron (), is a valley and its surrounding area in Israel populated mainly by Arab citizens of Israel, Arab Israelis. The area is also known as the "Triangle (Israel), Northern Triangle". Wadi Ara is located northwest of t ...

), at whose exit he attacked and captured the city of

Megiddo Megiddo may refer to: Places and sites in Israel * Tel Megiddo, site of an ancient city in Israel's Jezreel valley * Megiddo Airport, a domestic airport in Israel * Megiddo church (Israel) * Megiddo, Israel, a kibbutz in Israel * Megiddo Juncti ...

Mamluk Sultanate and Ottoman Empire

In 1265, two of the villages were mentioned among the estates which the

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

sultan

Baibars Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari (; 1223/1228 – 1 July 1277), commonly known as Baibars or Baybars () and nicknamed Abu al-Futuh (, ), was the fourth Mamluk sultan of Egypt and Syria, of Turkic Kipchak origin, in the Ba ...

granted his

emir Emir (; ' (), also Romanization of Arabic, transliterated as amir, is a word of Arabic language, Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocratic, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person po ...

s after he had defeated the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

: The whole of Ibthan (''Bathan'') was given to his

Alam al-Din Sanjar al-Halabi al-Salihi'',

Ibn al-Furat Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. ʿAlī al-Miṣrī al-Ḥanafī () (1334–1405 CE), better known as Ibn al-Furāt, was an Egyptian historian, best known for his universal history, generally known as ''Taʾrīkh al-duwal wa � ...

, 1971, pp. 81, 209, 249 (map) while Yamma was divided equally between the emirs ''Saif al-Din Itamish al-Sa'di'' and ''Shams al-Din Aqsunqur''. Yama and Ibtan appeared in Ottoman tax registers compiled in 1596, in the ''

Nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...

s'' of Qaqun and Jabal Sami, respectively, of the

Nablus Nablus ( ; , ) is a State of Palestine, Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 156,906. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a ...

'' Liwa''. Yama had a population of 18 Muslim households and 5 bachelors, while Ibtan was indicated as empty even though it paid taxes.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 127, p. 138. In 1882, in the PEF's ''

Survey of Western Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the completed Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) and in 1880 for the soon abandoned Survey of Eastern Palestine. The ...

'', only ''Khurbet Ibthan'' was noted, with "traces of ruins and a well."Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p
196
/ref>

British Mandate and Israel

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divis ...

conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Bir al-Sikka had a population of 36, Ibthan 56 and Yamma 48, all

Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

.Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Tulkarem, p
28
/ref> Until 1948, all four villages were administratively related to the modern-day

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

town of

Deir al-Ghusun Deir al-Ghusun () is a Palestinian people, Palestinian town in the Tulkarm Governorate, located eight kilometers northeast of the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, Palestine. The town is near the Green Line (Israel), Green Line (border be ...

.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
74
/ref> Zemer's population at the end of 2009 was 5,700, and its jurisdiction is 8,203 dunams. The population increased to 6,375 in 2014. The mayor of Zemer is Yassin Harzalla.Continuing to improve personal security in the Arab sector
/ref>

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * pp
439440

External links

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 11:
Wikimedia commons
{{Authority control Arab localities in Israel Triangle (Israel) Local councils in Central District (Israel)