to the villages. The residents of Iqrit reapplied for their resettlement in the village, but the government, headed by Golda Meir, decided in July 1972 that the residents of Iqrit and Kufr Birim would not be allowed to return to their villages, and would be compensated and resettled in their existing residences. The case persisted in public discourse, and, in 1977, the new government of Menachem Begin nominated a committee, headed by Minister Ariel Sharon, to examine the issue of the return of the residents. The committee decided not to allow their return. In 1981, the residents issued their third petition to the Supreme Court, in which they requested the cancellation of both the closure order and the confiscation of their land. The petition was denied on the grounds of the long-time delay. The Court assumed that the expropriation was legal and that there was no change in the security situation that should justify cancellation of the orders.97 In 1995, government deliberations about Iqrit and Kufr Birim were again launched under the Rabin government by the then Minister of Justice, David Liba’i. Liba’i proposed to settle the case if the Palestinian residents of the villages agreed to, a) partial return (only heads of households accompanied by two descendants); b) forgo land restitution (only a small parcel of land would be leased to returning households); and, c) not to engage in agriculture. This proposal was rejected by the residents of the two villages, who by then numbered some 8,000 people with claims to 36,972 dunums of land. In total, the government had offered to lease 1,200 dunums of the villagers’ original land (about 3 percent) back to a limited number of proposed returnees. Israel’s Security Cabinet decided against their return because of fifty-year-old “security concerns” and most importantly, because it “would set a precedent for other displaced Palestinians, who all demand to return to their homes and lands.”98 In 1997, the residents of Iqrit and Kufr Birim re-filed their case with the Israeli High Court; however, the issue remained unresolved under the Netanyahu and Barak governments in the late 90s. In 2001, Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister of Israel and quickly interfered to stop this judicial process. He sent an affidavit in his name, asking the Court not to recognize the villagers’ right to return. He argued that such a decision would have long-term implications that could affect final status negotiations over the refugee issue. The Court accepted Sharon’s demand and ruled against the right to return of Iqrit and Kufr Birim’s indigenous residents. 97 HCJ, 141/81, Committee of Iqrit vs. the Government of Israel, 36(1), P.D. (1982), (Isr.) 129. 98 Nur Masalha, Catastrophe Remembered. Palestine, Israel and Internal Refugees, Essays in Memory of Edward Said (London : Zed Books , 2005), 41. 35