Maximos V Hakim (Arabic: ماكسيموس الخامس حكيم; May 18, 1908 – June 29, 2001) was elected Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, and Alexandria and Jerusalem of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in 1967 and served until 2000.

He was appointed eparch on March 13, 1943 and consecrated Eparch of St. John of Acre, Haifa, Nazareth and all Galilee, in Cairo on June 13, 1943, by Patriarch Cyril IX Moghabghab, assisted by the Archbishops Dionysius Kfoury, Titular bishop of Tarsus dei Greco-Melkiti, and Pierre Medawar, Titular bishop of Pelusium dei Greco-Melkiti, patriarchal auxiliaries.

He enjoyed warmer ties with the Syrian government than the Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, patriarch of the more powerful Maronite Catholic community.

[3] In the 1950s, while he was archbishop of Galilee, the future patriarch was involved in the fate of the Palestinians of the two depopulated Christian villages of Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit.

A number of sources[4][5][6] have quoted Maximos V as having said "the Arab League had issued orders exhorting the people to seek a temporary refuge in neighboring countries."

[4]A 1949 pamphlet Arab Refugees: Facts and Figures prepared by the Research Department of the Jewish Agency, quotes a letter by Karl Baehr, Executive Secretary of the American Christian Palestine Committee to the New York Herald Tribune: The role played by the British authorities in the Arab mass flight is also stressed by Monsignor George Hakim, Archbishop of the Greek Catholic Church (a Uniate Church which is in fellowship with the Vatican and counts 20,864 adherents in Palestine).

They were convinced by what they had heard and read that the defeat of the Jewish armed forces, the re-establishment of peace and order throughout the country, and the institution of Arab rule, would be achieved within a short time.

At no time did I state that the flight of the refugees was due to the orders, explicit or implicit, of their leaders, military or political, to leave the country and seek shelter in the adjacent Arab territories.

However, findings since the 1980s by the 'New Historians' , most prominently Benny Morris, cast doubt on the predominance of foreign Arab instigated mass evacuation as portrayed in the official Israeli account.