Residents of Kibbutz Negba were surprised to receive letters over the weekend from an elderly “Palestinian refugee” asking them to leave their homes. The letter claimed that the kibbutz was built on the remnants of the Arab village Beit Afa, which was “ethnically cleansed” in the 1930s. The letter writer promised European Union funding to any residents of the kibbutz who would “go back to Europe” or America and leave their property for “refugees” and their offspring.
Kibbutz member MK Avshalom Vilan (Meretz) calmed his neighbors, telling them that the letter was not sent by a “refugee,” but by Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria angered by his plan to pay Jews to leave their homes. Residents received a second letter shortly afterwards from activist Nachi Eyal, a Jewish resident of Psagot, claiming responsibility for the first letter.
Eyal informed residents that the “refugee” author of the first letter, who claimed seven children and 136 grandchildren and great-grandchildren who longed to return to their ancestral home, was real. While the man did not write the letter, Eyal said, he had posted his picture and story on a website aimed at encouraging foreign Arabs to return “home” to villages their grandparents and great-grandparents left during the War of Independence.