*This article is part of a series*
We turn our attention now to the arrival of Jewish immigrants to Palestine Israel
One would expect to see commonplace examples of Jews stealing, strong-arming, swindling, blackmailing; basically resorting to any trick up their sleeve to pry land out of Arab hands. In reality, the Jewish technique of accumulating land was simple ... they bought it. Both the concern and the complaints of Jews dispossessing Arabs centered on how much land the Jews were purchasing, not stealing, from land owners:
- The British investigation into the Arab riots during 1936-39 identifies "Arab alarm at the continued Jewish purchase of land"1, not Jewish theft of land, as one of the motivating factors.
- "Conversely, the main Ottoman and Arab complaint against the Zionists was about land sales..."2
- "Meanwhile, Jewish land purchase continued apace, exacerbating Palestinian disquiet."3
- "Arab discontent on account of Jewish immigration and the sale of lands to Jews which has been a permanent feature of political opinion in Palestine for the past ten years, began to show signs of renewed activity from the beginning of 1933, developing in intensity until it reached a climax in the riots of October and November."4
- "In the beginning of the 1930s, the national value of the land and its transfer from one people to the other became one of the main issues in the political conflict between the two communities. The Arabs insisted that His Majesty's Government put an end to land purchase by the Jews, claiming that it threatened their national existence."5
- "Though they had profited from the enhanced trade and employment opportunities generated by the new Jewish settlements, Palestinian Arabs had grown increasingly concerned about the rise of Jewish immigration and land purchases."
- "An article published in July 1911 by Mustafa Effendi Tamr, a teacher of mathematics at a Jerusalem school" reads, "You are selling the property of your fathers and grandfathers for a pittance to people who will have no pity on you, to those who will act to expel you and expunge your memory from your habitations and disperse you among the nations. This is a crime that will be recorded in your names in history, a black stain and disgrace that your descendants will bear, which will not be expunged even after years and eras have gone by. ... Opposition to land sales was one of the principal focal points around which the Arab national idea in
- "Of course, the Zionists bought the land from Arab landholders, who moved to cities or even left the country. They were all too willing to sell, for the price paid by the purchasers was often many times more than anyone else would or could pay."
- King Abdallah of
- "... the fears of the Arab political leaders are supported by the fact that the sale of land continues unrestricted and every day one piece of land after another is torn from the hands of the Arabs.
- "According to my information the Jews have requested the continuance of the mandate so that they can buy up more land and bring in additional immigrants. No other country has gone through such a trial as
- "Or are you among those who believe that there is no harm in continuing the present deleterious mandate despite the Jewish usurpers it has brought and despite the demonstrated inability of those Palestinians now at the political helm to prevent their compatriots from selling their land? Furthermore, it is made quite clear to all, both by the map drawn up by the Simpson Commission and by another compiled by the Peel Commission, that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping."
- "‘Know each of you that in the end every Arab who sells land of the Arab patrimony or who pimps for the Jews will soon receive his due, which is certain death.’ The placards were signed by an organization calling itself ‘Revenge.’ ‘Our problem is the outcome of the sale of our land. The amazing thing is that we sell to the Jews and then scream and wail and ask for the government’s help,’"11
- "The land policy of the Zionist movement in the pre-state era was based on purchase of land on the open market by Jewish institutions (mainly the JNF) and subsequent freezing of the ownership so as to ensure that the purchased land would be in Jewish hands in perpetuity."33
Not only was the land being legally purchased, it was being purchased at drastically inflated prices. Arab land owners were making a killing selling their land during the waves of Jewish immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite the animosity against selling land to Jews coming from elitist Arabs, it simply made good economic sense for landlords to sell while they could exploit the thriving market Jewish demand was creating. Sometimes the land being purchased was nothing more than sand dune, malarial swamps and marshes, or other unattractive plots of waste. Even so, it was payday for many landlords; a day many hadn't seen in a long time and one that wouldn't come again:
- "Until 1936 ... the Jews acquired about 25,000 dunam in the
- "The Jewish authorities have nothing with which to reproach themselves in the matter of the Sursock lands. They paid high prices for the land, and in addition they paid to certain of the occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay."13
- "He [the Arab] may sell his land for a fantastic price and add to the congestion in the other zones by moving there. An Arab living a short distance away, just across the zone boundary, cannot obtain anything approximating the same sum for land of equal quality.”14
- "The Jews were paying exorbitant prices to wealthy landowners for small tracts of arid land. “In 1944, Jews paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in
- "The settlers were ready to pay much more than the economic value of the land. The same or better land is available a few kilometers to the east or north of the
- “Between 1880 and 1914 over sixty thousand Jews entered Palestine … Many settled on wasteland, sand-dunes and malarial marsh, which they then drained, irrigated and farmed. In 1909 a group of Jews founded the first entirely Jewish town, Tel Aviv, on the sandhills north of
- “By 1925 over 2,600 Jews had settled in the [Jezreel] valley, and 3,000 acres of barren hillside had been afforested. This previously uncultivated land, bought at highly inflated prices, became the pattern of all subsequent Jewish National Fund settlements in
- "In his 'note of reservations' to the Report of the Woodhead Commission, Sir Alison Russel says: 'It does not appear to me that to permit an Arab to sell his land for three or four times its value, and to go with the money to a different part of the Arab world where land is cheap, can be said to "prejudice" his rights and position.'"19
- "The average price paid by Jews for the rural land they bought in
- "... land brokers sometimes purchased their shares or parcels at a very low price and sold them at ten and twenty multiples to Jewish buyers. Peasants who were in musha' villages were particularly incensed at landlords, land brokers, or agents after learning that they had been swindled."21
- "Aharon Danin of KKL told of an interesting conversation he had at the beginning of the 1940s with Khaled Zu’bi (brother of Sayf al-Din), who helped him buy land in the Zu’biyya villages east of
"The Arab large landowner quickly recognized that he could now do much better business with his land than continuing to have it worked by tenants. ... It was valid to sell it to the newly arrived [Jewish and German] colonist and indeed for the highest possible price. What was to happen to the renter for whom the land was ... sold from under his feet concerned the effendi very little. The tenant was just tossed out onto the street and had to take to his heels. So the colonization became an uninterrupted source of tenant tragedies. On the other hand, the price of land rose in an unimaginable manner."22
In addition to the inflated land value, Jewish buyers were also making numerous and substantial (some might say extortionist) payments to see the deal through from beginning to end. "Initial sums were usually paid to lubricate the selling motive. Local village notables, tenants in occupation, mukhtars, intermediaries, brokers, short-term squatters, and land registry officials often received persuasive sums. The owner or owners also received a sum of money prior to signing the contract. This could mean paying several similar or different sums to members of one family who owned portions of a large land area. A subsequent payment was sometimes made when all the title deeds available were collected and condensed into one large parcel. Another payment was made when a portion of the land was legally transferred or prior to the land being considered free of tenants and agricultural occupants. Still another sum was paid when possession was taken (this to avoid squatting by transient fellaheen), and then periodically as stipulated in a contract."31
A Bit of Hypocrisy
It was the Arab political leadership that was screaming the loudest about stopping these land sales: "The Arab Press lost nothing of its virulence in inveighing against ... the transfer of land to Jews ... The Arab leaders have been more outspoken and less compromising in their hostility ..."23 Of course, rendering these protests utterly disingenuous was the fact these same Arabs continued selling their land to immigrating Zionists. These elitist hypocrites wanted to reserve the right to profit from the suddenly valuable land in Palestine
- "The historian's eye has also been caught by the ambivalent position of the Arab national leadership which, while publicly demanding an end to Zionist expansion, privately continued to sell land to the Jews."24
- "Here one cannot ignore the continuous sale of land by Arab landowners to Jews in the 1930s, which was so crucial to the success of Zionism. This can be treated in the context of the social fragmentation of Arab society in
- "Throughout the Mandate, the leading Arab families, including Husseinis and Opposition figures, sold land to the Zionists, despite their nationalist professions. Jewish landholding increased between 1920 and 1947 from about 456,000 dunams to about 1.4 million dunams. The main brake on Jewish land purchases, at least during the 1920s and 1930s, was lack of funds, not any Arab indisposition to sell."26
- "And a giant question mark hangs over the “nationalist” ethos of the Palestinian arab elite: Husseinis as well as Nashashibis, Khalidis, Dajanis, and Tamimis just before and during the Mandate sold land to the Zionist institutions and/or served as Zionist agents and spies."27
- "Muhammad Nimer al-Hawwari, who headed the Najjadah, took the microphone at a rally in
- "The rural elite, with their large landholdings, were accused of opportunism by fellahin, who declared: ‘They, the effendis, sold their lands to the Jews, they are the intermediaries between us and the Jews in the sale of land, they exploit us with usurious interest and head the gangs that abused us.’"29
An initial contrast between the way Arab money lenders and merchants acquired land through economic oppression and trickery versus the way Zionist immigrants acquired land through paying exorbitant sums of money offers no answers for why conflict erupted. In fact, considering only the methods of land acquisition apart from any issue it would seem the arrival of Jewish immigrants and their money would have ended hostilities that should have already been in place. It cannot be suggested by any reasonable account that Jewish land purchases oppressed or dispossessed the legal owners of the land being sold. That was a willful agreement reached between two parties. The catch here was the tenant farmers that lived and worked the land being sold. These were often times the previous owners who had already been dispossessed of their ownership before Jewish immigrants arrived. Now with interested Jewish buyers available, the same Arabs guilty of demoting these farmers to tenant status were selling the land out from under them to turn a profit.
The reason this was such a concern was that Jewish buyers wanted the land free of tenant farmers. Unlike absentee Arab landlords living in Damascus Beirut Cairo
Perhaps the physical act of relocation was of greater psychological consequence than losing intangible ownership and therefore accounts for why conflict only arose against the Jews. Yes, it was the Arab elite who stripped them of this ownership through a series of oppressive measures and then in a second pass sold away the land they used, but it was typically not until the Jews arrived that the Arabs faced the physical consequences of relocation. The next section in this series explores the extent to which this form of Zionist dispossession took place.
As the Jews took possession of the land, they faced the responsibility of what to do with poor Arab farmers residing there. Often times, the previous owner who sold to the Jews lived outside the region and the existence of these farmers was of little concern. If the landlord could collect rent from them, he would. If not, their presence was tolerated in so far as prosecuting them for trespassing did not top the landlord's priorities. The problem arose when the new Jewish landlords desired not only ownership of the land, but to live and work there, to cultivate with their own hands. A British report describes this troublesome scenario:
“An Arab of the effendi class acquires ... a large tract in return for a comparatively trivial outlay: and is content to collect such rents as he can from some occupiers. Others, being illiterate and cut off from common sources of information, do not recognise the existence of an alleged owner who himself is certainly quite unable to identify the boundaries of his own supposed property. These limits are described in his title deeds only in such vague terms as are possible in an unsurveyed area with few distinctive topographical features, and so may be today, practically, unidentifiable. A Jewish Organisation buys this land from the owner, and, as entitled under law, proceeds to take possession for development of its prosperity. That proceeding involves eviction of a number of men who have possibly heard of the late owner merely as a neighbouring effendi, and who have grazed a more or less indeterminate local area for generations without paying the alleged owner any rent. The eviction displaces them from land of which, to all intents and purposes, they are, and have been for generations hereditary occupiers ...
Monetary compensation is no solace for such men as these who can find no other pied-a-terre: and who can recognize no reason for the change of circumstances which deprives them of the only form of livelihood known to them. And the offers by organizations to provide money for the purchase of land elsewhere for the re-settlement of evicted tenants represent simply the familiar device of transferring a nuisance from oneself to one’s neighbour.”1
Monetary compensation is no solace for such men as these who can find no other pied-a-terre: and who can recognize no reason for the change of circumstances which deprives them of the only form of livelihood known to them. And the offers by organizations to provide money for the purchase of land elsewhere for the re-settlement of evicted tenants represent simply the familiar device of transferring a nuisance from oneself to one’s neighbour.”1
Knowing this was the case, and not wanting to become entangled in legal disputes that could last for years, the Jewish organizations preferred to buy land free of any such landless tenants:
- "In 1920 he [Ben-Gurion] told a visiting delegation of Poalei Zion that '... the most important economic asset of the native population is the fellahs, the builders of the country and its laborers ... Under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to the fellas or worked by them. ... They must receive help from Jewish settlement institutions, to free themselves from their dead weight of their oppressors, and to keep their land. Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price.' And if an effendi landowner sold land worked by fellahs, 'then we must give the displaced tenants their own plots, and the means to cultivate such tracts more intensively. When this is impossible, the fellahs must receive new land elsewhere.'"2
- "Ben-Gurion placed the work of renewal in the desert and the wastelands. He told a visiting delegation in 1920 that the possibilities for massive settlement of Jews lay in the abandoned or uninhabited reaches ... on land that had no owners, and on partially utilized tracts owned privately or by the government. He estimated that four fifths of the country's territory was available for new settlement. Six million persons using modern methods could earn their livelihoods from farming these lands; an untold number could prosper from industry. None of this activity would impinge on the Arabs, who would continue to live in their established areas, while Jews lived in new settlements and worked new fields."3
- "From 1936 on Arabs sold land only when there were no tenant farmers on it. In 1938 the Palestine Land Development Company wrote to the Political Department of the Jewish Agency: 'Some time ago you requested detailed information from us concerning Arabs living on lands in the
- "Acquiring land with the fewest number of fellaheen occupants was also a priority since this meant reducing the number of contacts between the JNF and Arab sellers."5
It was only after property completely free of tenant farmers could not be found that Jewish organizations began purchasing land used by them. This inspired "apprehensions concerning the fate of Palestine
How Many Landless Arabs?
As defined in the introduction, these were Arabs who were dispossessed and never secured any alternate land to live and work on. How many Arabs were rendered landless directly because of Zionist land purchase? The quick answer is approximately 3,300. How I arrived there is detailed below.
"The ultimate official but inaccurate estimates of landless Arabs displaced by Jewish land purchase were achieved through the efforts of the Development Department... That estimate, based upon the narrowest of definitions of what constituted a landless Arab, found that less than 900 Arabs were displaced because of Jewish land purchase. There is little doubt that Jewish land purchase and Arab land sales forced a greater number of fellaheen from land they had traditionally cultivated and used for grazing. But in the absence of accurate information on the former status of cultivators, or of the intermediary activities of Arab landlords, merchants, lawyers, and other individuals who acted as land brokers, no true assessment of landless or displaced Arabs could then, or now, objectively be made."7
It seems a more accurate estimate can be made using data from Lewis French's in-depth investigations into Arab landlessness. French was Britain Palestine
"The tribunal which was appointed to investigate claims decided to admit as entitled to resettlement Arabs who have been displaced from the land which they occupied in consequence of those lands having passed into Jewish hands, and who have failed to obtain other holdings on which to establish themselves or equally satisfactory occupation, subject to the following exceptions:--
1. Persons who have themselves sold their land, that is, owners who of their own free will have sold their lands;
2. Persons who own land elsewhere;
3. Persons who have found and are now cultivating as tenants land other than that from which they were displaced;
4. Persons who obtained land after the sale of the land from which they were displaced, but have since ceased to cultivate it on account of poverty or other reasons;
5. Persons who were not cultivators at the time of the sale, for example, ploughmen and labourers."8
1. Persons who have themselves sold their land, that is, owners who of their own free will have sold their lands;
2. Persons who own land elsewhere;
3. Persons who have found and are now cultivating as tenants land other than that from which they were displaced;
4. Persons who obtained land after the sale of the land from which they were displaced, but have since ceased to cultivate it on account of poverty or other reasons;
5. Persons who were not cultivators at the time of the sale, for example, ploughmen and labourers."8
“The procedure being adopted in verifying claims by Arabs, who have been displaced from the lands which they occupied in consequence of the lands falling into Jewish hands, and who have not obtained other holdings on which they have established themselves or other equally satisfactory occupation is as follows: Each claim is carefully examined by the Legal Advisor ... Where the claim appears to be invalid it is submitted to me and, if I concur, rejected. Where prima facie the claim appears sustainable, papers dealing with it are sent to the Jewish Agency, who are asked to submit their views. Where they object to the validity of the claim, the Legal Assessor proceeds to the locality concerned and makes further investigation on the spot, then submitting the case with his opinion for my final orders.”9
With the definition of who qualified to be considered a landless Arab established along with the mechanism for validating the claims, French thought “It was obvious that, whether this extensive area has been bought from large Arab proprietors or from small land holders, the acquisitions for permanent settlement by immigrants could not have been effected without considerable displacement of existing cultivators.”10.
But the reality did not meet French's expectations. In fact, after investigating Arab landless claims for over a year with his opinion on the outcome already formed, "by March 1932 it was clear that the number of landless Arab families did not reach the figure of thousands, as expected; there were only 664 families to be dealt with.'"11 "... although 3,271 applications for re-settlement had been received from landless Arabs, only 664 had been admitted to the register, while 2,607 had been disallowed."12
There were on average 5 members to a Palestinian Arab family.13 14 27 28 29 This means that 3,300+ Arabs were relegated to a landless class out of a total of roughly 700,000 Arabs in Palestine which is not quite one half of one percent of the Arab population. This is why the widely held conclusion is that Palestinian Arabs, largely, were not dispossessed by immigrating Jews:
- "The old bogy that the Jew has come to deprive the Arab of his lands is being rapidly dispelled. Only a few days ago, in Safed, I was offered, for the Zionist Executive of Palestine, an immense tract of land (comprising nearly 75,000 acres) at a price nearly one-fourth of the amount demanded by the Arabs for the same land two years ago. At that time the Arab landlords really believed that the Jew was ready, willing and able to pay any price, however exorbitant, for land. He, therefore, naturally feared to part with his holdings and demanded prices that could not stand the test of economic reason. Now he has learned that 'rich as a Jew' is merely a figure of speech, and that we are too wise to pay high prices for unproductive land. Now the Jews can purchase in the open market, at reasonable prices, all the lands necessary for their future development. But, as a matter of fact, there is already more than enough land in Jewish hands for the next ten years' development."15
- “The shortage of land is due less to purchase by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. The Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought.”16
- “As pioneers in
- "Zionist settlement between 1880 and 1948 did not displace or dispossess Palestinians. Every indication is that there was net Arab immigration into
- "Economic, social, and political circumstances compelled many Palestinians to dislodge or uproot themselves. Over decades, 'landlessness' was caused mainly by the peasants' overwhelming indebted condition. It was enhanced by a perilous agricultural economy and augmented by an inhospitable bureaucracy which endorsed a 'politics of notables.' ... 'landlessness' was not due primarily to Jewish land purchase or ARab land sales. A large plurality of Palestinians who were engaged in rural occupations were in fact not landowners, though many may have been in previous decades."19
- "Mr. GALLACHER: Is it not the case that the strike of Arabs is based partly on the fact that they are being driven off the land?
Mr. ORMSBY-GORE [Secretary of State for the Colonies]: I cannot accept that suggestion for one moment."20
- "In the early 1930s, Arab land sales and Jewish land purchases contributed to the evolution of an Arab landless class. But the principal factor influencing Arab landlessness was the fellaheen's deteriorating economic condition."21
Is roughly one half of one percent of a population ending up landless enough to serve as a major contribution to such a grand struggle? It doesn't seem to add up. Even if every single case of a landless Arab served as an example of harsh and unjust Zionist treatment, half a percent of the population being evicted from land they often times didn't own just doesn't sound like a mobilizing factor in itself.
As it turns out, there wasn't much harsh or unjust treatment going on. These landless Arabs were not left to roam Palestine
- "An overwhelming preponderance of the tenants for whom we have records preferred monetary compensation to a maintenance area."22
- "There were surprisingly few claims to tenancy rights from Arabs with respect to Jewish-owned land. This lack of claims was evidence that Jewish landowners were finding little difficulty, by means of payment of liberal compensation, in persuading Arabs who claimed rights to abandon their claims."23
- "The most unanticipated result of the POCO was its stimulating effect upon land transfers. Many landowners who still possessed reasonably large estates of 1,000 dunams or more sold their lands to Jewish purchasers rather than run the risk of tenancy claims."24
- "Nevertheless, Arab tenants gladly took compensation to vacate their holdings. Some relished the opportunity while others were reluctant to accept anything but land. Ultimately, the peasants were defenseless against the process of dispossession and the legalized but relentless pressure that went with it. Such pressure emanated simultaneously from Arab sellers, Jewish purchasers, and an agricultural economy that was precarious at best. Many who received monetary compensation saw these lump sums as means toward debt extrication. Most squandered the money given them. Very few invested the proceeds in other, more profitable commercial or agricultural pursuits."25
- "In the 1920s and 1930s, there were hundreds of examples of Palestinian Arabs voluntarily emigrating away from new or imminent Jewish settlements and enclaves because of economic reasons, Arab sales, and Jewish purchases. For example, when the Palestine Land Development Company purchased land for the Jewish National Fund (INF) in the Acre area and Jezreel Valley in the 1920s, more than 688 Arab tenants and their families from more than twenty Arab villages comprising more than 250,000 dunams (one dunam equals a quarter acre) vacated their lands after each tenant received financial compensation from Zionist buyers. Most of these former tenants remained in northern
In addition to favorable agreements being privately reached between Jewish buyer and Arab tenant, a slew of laws and ordinances were passed with these landless Arabs in mind, whether to keep them from becoming landless in the first place, or to assist them in the event they ended up that way. The next page will look at this in depth.
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