Middle East Piece - Protecting Palestinian Arabs from Dispossession

Safeguarding the Poor

*This article is part of a series*

Dispossession and economic oppression flourished unchecked during Ottoman times. It was not until the arrival of British rule in Palestine that anything resembling a humane treatment of the peasant class took shape. Over the years as the British saw a need, they enacted and modified legislation to protect tenant farmers from evolving threats to their livelihood.

Several of the measures the British instituted went so far in protecting tenant farmers that they began infringing upon the rights of owners to sell and buyers to buy. This concern was noble, as any concern for the poor is, but ultimately proved to be too intrusive into activities Arabs and Jews felt they were freely entitled to; both Arab land owners and Zionist purchasers found ways of circumventing these laws to varying degrees. Even though not all of the measures detailed below proved totally effective, it at least illustrates the concern for the fellahin that simply did not exist before.

From the 1920s and onwards, "almost a dozen major investigatory reports were written, and an unprecedented number of Palestinian laws were proposed or enacted which focused exclusively on the burdensome economic difficulties facing the majority rural population. In addition, a 'landless' Arab inquiry was completed by the Palestine administration. While the reports and statistical inquiries which were issued aimed at evaluating and enumerating the economic well-being of the rural population, the ordinances which were either proposed or promulgated focused on every conceivable means to keep the peasant leashed to his land. These Palestine laws included the 1928 Land Settlement Ordinance, the 1929 and 1933 Protection of Cultivators Ordinances and their amendments, the 1931 Law of Execution Amendment Ordinance, the 1932 Land Disputes Possession Ordinance, the proposed but not passed 1933 Musha' Lands Ordinance, the 1934 Usurious Loans Ordinance, the proposed but not passed Damages Bill of 1935, and the 1936 Short Term Crops Loan Ordinance."¹

Some of the noteworthy features of the many laws and ordinances to protect tenant farmers were:

Set aside sufficient land on the purchased lot for the continued sustenance of the tenants
Ban the eviction of tenants in good standing
Provide alternate land for tenants to move to if evicted
Give the tenant being evicted one year's notice
Ensure alternate land was in the same vicinity from which they were moved
Cover all moving costs to new land with government funds
Irrigate and/or deep-plow new land if need be
Require compensation be paid, including for any crops left behind
Mandate that tenant farmers continue in a familiar occupation

"The first real effort made by the mandatory government to keep all classes of agricultural workers tied to land came in 1918 with the closure of Palestine's land registry offices. … Though there was considerable success at frustrating the prohibition's intent, the ultimate goal of maintaining fellahin on their land from 1918 to 1920 was accomplished."²

"The earliest legislation in Palestine concerned with the protection of tenants from eviction was the Land Transfer Ordinance of September, 1920. ... Under this legislation the consent of Government to all dispositions of immoveable property was required; and the Governor of a District ... was required to withhold consent to any transfer of agricultural land unless he was satisifed that the tenant would retain sufficient land for the maintenance of himself and his family. This legislation failed to achieve its purpose because tenants for the most part did not avail themselves of its provisions, but preferred to divest themselves of their rights thereunder by declaring, usually before a Notary Public, that they were not tenants entitled to its protection and accepting monetary compensation for so doing. Tenants were often induced to do this by unscrupulous pressure brought to bear upon them by their Arab landlords, to whom they stood in a quasi-feudal relation, and by their state of indebtedness. The principal Jewish land purchasing bodies at that time adopted a policy of not purchasing land unless all agricultural tenants had been removed therefrom by the vendor before the sale. Thus the provision of the law requiring retention of sufficient land for maintenance of the tenant and his family was evaded."³

"In November 1921 ... High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel somewhat allayed Arab apprehensions about all of Palestine being turned over to the Zionists, by conferring upon some 2,500 Arab cultivators the exclusive right to farm some of the most fertile land in Palestine."⁴

“The principle of protection of a part of a cultivator’s holding in Palestine was affirmed when, in 1928, Government issued its “Statement of Policy” in regard to the Beisan cultivators, permitting them under certain conditions to dispose of a part of their holdings provided that they retain sufficient land for the maintenance of themselves and their families.”⁵

“The rights of tenants-cultivators in this country are now adequately safeguarded by a law which was enacted in August, 1933, extending the protection given to certain cultivators by the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance, 1929, and its subsequent amendments. The new enactment creates a class of statutory tenants and provides that any such tenant who has occupied and cultivated a holding for a period of not less than one year shall not be ejected therefrom except in given circumstances. The principal change is that if the tenant has paid his rent and has not grossly neglected his holding no order for his eviction can be made unless he has been provided with a subsistence area approved by the High Commissioner. The Ordinance defines "subsistence area" as such land as will enable the statutory tenant to maintain his customary means of livelihood in any occupation with which he is familiar; the land must, as nearly as circumstances permit, be in the vicinity of the holding from which the tenant is ejected.”⁶

The Protection of Cultivators Ordinance of 1929 "provided for the payment to certain classes of tenants of compensation, not only for any improvements but also for disturbance, on their receiving a valid notice to quit a holding." An amendment to this ordinance activated in 1931 "protected from eviction persons who had exercised continuously for a period of five years a practice of grazing or watering animals or the cutting of wood or reeds or other beneficial occupation of a similar character, unless the landlord had made equivalent provision towards the livelihood of such persons. Subsequent amendments tightened up the Ordinance on various points in favour of the tenant and stopped certain loopholes through which it had been found that evasion was possible."⁷

"In 1931, several further important measures were introduced for the benefit of agriculturists. First, the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance which ensures that no tenant of, or possessor of beneficiary rights over, land shall be dispossessed unless the High Commissioner is satisfied that he is adequately provided for on other land or in other occupation. Secondly, the Law of Mortgage Amendment Ordinance preserves the status of tenants in the case of the sale of land in foreclosure of mortgage: hitherto tenants' rights were deemed to be extinguished by forced sale of the landlord's estate. Thirdly, the oppressive Ottoman Law as to imprisonment for debt, which weighed heavily upon the fellahin, was replaced by an Ordinance which requires proof of means to pay, before imprisonment is ordered, and reduces the maximum term of imprisonment from 91 to 21 days. 15. In Beersheba, where the fellahin were impoverished by the drought of 1930, a sum of £P14,000 was made available for short-term loans to enable them to buy seed for the summer sowing. Further substantial remissions of commuted tithe in respect both of 1930 arrears and 1931 dues were granted, owing to the continued fall in the price of agricultural products, and as compensation for losses from the ravages of field mice. The total revenue thus relinquished by the Government in 1930 and 1931 was nearly £P300,000. 16. In the north, district authorities were empowered to postpone collections of arrears of tithe and werko and of instalments of agricultural loans, in any case of genuine inability to pay. This relief was of special application to the Jewish settlements. 17. An official Committee was appointed in December to consider the replacement of the present commuted tithe and werko by a single land tax. 18. Arrangements are also being made through a Commission of Government officers to classify comprehensively outstanding arrears of tithe, werko, and agricultural loans, with a view to consideration of the possibility and desirability of writing off arrears which are evidently irrecoverable or reducing indebtedness in cases of real hardship."⁸

"In May 1931, the Protection of Cultivators Amendment Ordinance (POCAO) was enacted. ... Legislation for the first time protected grazers who had been in continuous occupation of a particular area for five years, even though lawyers for the JA feared that any fellah who merely exercised the practice of grazing could move onto the land and take possession of it and defy the landlord to have him removed, except in payment of some compensation."⁹

"In an effort to streamline, redefine, and broaden tenants' protection, a new ordinance was enacted in August 1933 superseding all previous POCO legislation. ... The principal element in the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance of 1933 provided that no "statutory tenant" (person, family, or tribe) of one year could be disturbed by the owner, unless he was provided with a subsistence area whose adequacy was determined by a governmental board. Additionally, the tenant was given security against disturbance, was protected against unrestrained rent increase, and was entitled to compensation for improvements if evicted."¹⁰

"Had there not been an outbreak of Arab disturbances in April and May of 1936, the mandatory government would have enacted protection for owner-occupiers through retention of a maintenance area known as a "lot viable." This would have protected the largest and most economically vulnerable agricultural class in Palestine. But as a result of the riots and general strike, such legislation awaited the findings of the investigatory (Peel) commission. No owner-occupier legislation was ever enacted."¹¹

“If land be acquired in this way for the re-settlement of landless Arabs, Government will be obliged to bear the cost of providing the existing cultivators also with developed holdings, including, during the waiting period, maintenance charges and possibly subsistence allowances (if the means of livelihood cannot be obtained entirely by casual labour in the neighbourhood.) Plainly this will add substantially to the cost of re-settling landless Arabs, although the additional outlay, or some of it, may be ultimately recoverable in the form of rent."¹²

“For the protection then of the Arab small cultivator against complete expropriation or eviction, which may lead to his joining the class of landless Arabs, I have attached to this Report, as a basis for consideration and discussion, two draft Ordinances: (i) the Homestead Protection Ordinance and (ii) the Occupancy Tenants Ordinance, vide Appendices S.R.III and IV. These measures aim at affording early practical, and, in my judgment, indispensably necessary, remedies for the alleviation of the situation.”¹³

Lewis French outlined an Occupancy Tenants Ordinance with numerous articles addressing tenant farmer's rights:

“Moreover, the British administration and JNF went out of their way to find a temporary solution (leasing the tenants a small part of Wadi Hawarith) and some sort of acceptable and permanent compromise. Finally the government suggested that the tenants be resettled in the Beisan Valley, some 50 miles to the northwest. The tenants turned down that offer as well. All government efforts to bring the affair to a quiet and satisfactory conclusion were in vain. The tenants of Wadi Hawarith stuck to their guns: a settled Bedouin tribe from the most deprived stratum of Arab rural society, namely tenants, prevented the JNF from exercising its ownership rights and became a preoccupation of two high commissioners, Sir John Chancellor and Sir Arthur Wauchope.”¹⁵

“Each family of the Wadi Hawarith tenants was offered a lease on 40 to 60 dunams of irrigable land that would be drained and, if necessary, deep-ploughed at government expense; the settlers would be guaranteed appropriate housing, storage, and £2,300 in compensation for the crops left in the evacuated fields of Wadi Hawarith. Even transportation costs (people and equipment) would be covered by the government.”¹⁶

"If he be a displaced Arab, Government will replace him, as a son of the soil, on the land of his country and provide him with a house, farm and stock at a cost over all of, say, £10 to £12 per dunam."¹⁷

The Cultivators (Protection) Ordinance of 1933 provided several methods of securing tenant farmers which deserve to be quoted at length:
- "It defines a 'statutory tenant' as any person, family or tribe occupying and cultivating a holding otherwise than as owner thereof ... includes the relatives of any person occupying and cultivating a holding who may have, with the knowledge of the landlord, cultivated such holding ... includes the heirs of a tenant; and also any person who is hired by the landlord to do agricultural work and receives as remuneration a portion of the produce of the holding which he cultivates."
- "It provides that a 'statutory tenant' who has occupied and cultivated a holding for a period of not less than one year shall not ... be ejected therefrom unless he has been provided with a subsistence area approved by the High Commissioner. Such subsistence area is to be, as far as possible in the vicinity of the land from which he has been displaced."
- The Ordinance also provides for the protection of the rights of persons who have exercised on land the practice of grazing or watering animals, or cutting wood or reeds, unless provision of equivalent value is secured towards their livelihood; provided that such persons have exercised the practice ... habitually, at the appropriate seasons, for not less than five consecutive years within a period of not more than seven years prior to the date when any application is made to a court for their eviction."¹⁸

When Arab landlords attempted to evade the above ordinance by leasing to tenant farmers for less than one year to prevent them from acquiring tenancy rights, "A Bill was therefore published in 1936 amending the definition of 'statutory tenant' so as to extend protection to any person who cultivated a holding 'for one year or a period necessary to raise two successive crops'"¹⁹. This particular amendment was not introduced to law, however, because the British Royal Commission had recommended a new committee to address all facets of the land issues rather than one at a time.

The legislation concerning the protection of landless Arab tenant farmers became so robust in their favor that "In 1941 the State Domain Committee expressed the view that the Ordinance had become what they described as 'a serious obstacle to the reasoned development of the country' in that it placed in the hands of tenants and trespassers a weapon with which they were able to victimise the landlords." This committee reported in 1943 that "although before 1933 it was the landlord who had abused the legislation and the tenant who accordingly needed increased protection, since that date 'it had been the landlord's rights which have increasingly stood in need of protection, so that to-day the Ordinance is widely regarded rather as an instrument to facilitate the exploitation of landlords by tenants than as an instrument for the protection of tenants from the exploitation of landlords'. They showed that the outstanding abuse lay in the exploitation of the Ordinance by trespassers and squatters whom it was never intended to benefit but who, by the definition of 'statutory tenant', are legally entitled to its protection. Such persons enter upon land without the knowledge or consent of the owner, often without paying rent, and sometimes remain on the land not as bona fide cultivators but rather with a view to exploiting the pecuniary value of their gratuitously acquired rights. The provisions of the Ordinance make their eviction by the landlord a process which is not only lengthy but which is not assured of success, owing to the difficulty of finding alternative subsistance areas as required by the Ordinance. The landlord is normally obliged to have recourse to buying the occupier off the land; he has, however, no effective gurantee that the occupier will not return to the land and acquire fresh rights and a fresh nuisance value as a 'statutory tenant'. The Committee found that the protection afforded by the Ordinance was also being abused by tenants who, having entered into a lease agreement with a landlord, refused to honour their obligations under the lease once they had acquired the rights of a 'statutory tenant', and availed themselves of the provisions of the Ordinance to remain in occupation without paying rent. The Committee reported that abuses of this nature were tending to retard agricultural development in that landlords prefer to let their land lie vacant and fallow until they are able to develop it themselves rather than to lease it to tenants whom they will not be able to remove. ... The Committee also found that the protection afforded by the Ordinance to rights of grazing and watering animals and of cutting wood and reeds operated to the detriment of sound agricultural and forest development.²⁰

"The amount of money given to Arab tenants to vacate a land area prior to official transfer was often equal to or greater than the net amount of a tenant's yearly income, after rent, tax, and debt payment. A tenant's annual income was variously estimated to range anywhere from 9 to 30 Palestine pounds. Average compensation paid to the 688 tenants formerly employed by the Sursocks approximated 40 Palestine pounds per tenants and his family. ... In instances where there were agricultural workers in occupation, but not legally entitled to any form of compensation, Jewish purchasers in some cases paid amounts ranging from 5 to 15 Palestine pounds in order to give them funds to live on while not working and to find work elsewhere. It was not uncommon for the Palestine Land Development Company to make liberal payments to local village mukhtars, to better persuade their villagers to vacate their lands. The absolute cost of compensating tenants increased as legal protection was steadily strengthened and tenants became increasingly aware of their rights under the law, as the problem of land availability grew more acute, and as the price of land sharply increased. In order to ease further their evacuation from recently bought land, agents for Jewish purchasing organizations made additional payments on behalf of tenants for tax and debt arrears and for crops in the ground but not harvested. An unknown number of tenants did receive alternative land as prescribed by LTAO [Land Transfer Amendment Ordinance]. They eventually arranged to convert it into monetary compensation, left the area for agricultural pursuits elsewhere, moved to neighboring Arab villages and subsisted on per diem income, or migrated to the urban areas and often there to the building trades."²¹

"In response to the practice of producing a land sale agreement at the land registry documenting that land was free of tenant encumbrances, the new ordinance stipulated that a landlord had to provide written notice at least one year prior to the termination of a valid tenancy. In instances where the tenant had failed to pay his rent within a reasonable period of time, failed to cultivate the land in accordance with good husbandry, or where an order of bankruptcy was in force against the tenant, such written notice was not required. From June 1929 until the end of 1932, no case was referred to the High Commissioner whereby the tenant was declared bankrupt or deemed to have failed to cultivate a holding properly resulting in an order for eviction made by a landlord."²²

"The new POCO created serious problems for Jewish land purchase. Because it gave a tenant rights against the landlord and did not prejudice those rights when land was transferred, the new owner was as liable to tenancy claims as the seller. Even if the seller contracted to sell his land free of tenancy encumbrances, the purchaser could not be sure that he would not face numerous tenancy claims. As a result of tenants' rights to occupy land as protected under the Land Disputes Possession Ordinance, the Jewish owner of newly acquired land often found himself involved in very costly and lengthy judicial proceedings. Settlement with claimants to tenancy often necessitated out-of-court payments, sometimes forcing the purchaser to pay compensation to the tenants twice, once before the transfer and once after the transfer was effected. The second major criticism of the POCO lodged by Jewish purchasers concerned the limitations placed upon the landlord. By virtue of the ordinance, as soon as a tenant received administrative recognition of "statutory tenancy," he became the charge of the landlord for life. If the tenant decided that he preferred another parcel of land, for whatever reason, the landlord was obliged to reserve both the land from which he moved and the land to which he moved as maintenance areas. Since no area limit was placed upon a tenant's holding, some claimed that more land was necessary for their livelihood than they actually needed or could work, farming portions of it out to others who in turn paid the "statutory tenant" rent for its use. While many landlords, as noted, resorted to the resumption of their holdings, the ordinance deprived the landlord of absolute freedom to dispose of his land in whatever manner he wished. Land became, as a result, an illusory security forcing financial institutions to be cautious in granting credit or allowing collateral for what might well be encumbered land. The JNF argued that the ordinance perpetuated the practice of grazing at the expense of favoring more intensive use of otherwise cultivable lands."²³

"Responding to a question by Mr. S.O. Davies about whether the fellahin's situation in Palestine has "gone from bad to worse", Secretary of State for the Colonies, William George Arthur Ormsby-Gore, replied, 'From many points of view the position of the Arab fellahin has considerably improved since the issue of the report of 1930. I may mention in this connection the protection given to tenants under the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance; measures taken to meet the problem of indebtedness, whereby the indebtedness of cultivators in the Northern District alone is said to have been reduced by at least 60 per cent.; and the reform in the system of land taxation, which has reduced taxation payable by average cultivators of cereals by as much as 70 per cent. I am quite unable to accept the view stated in the last part of the hon. Member's question.'"²⁴

"British regulation had arrested the heretofore unchecked land-accumulation process. Landlords were not disposing of their tenants as freely as they had in the late Ottoman times."²⁵

"The most important result of partition and land reform has been the settlement of long-standing disputes and the achievement of security of tenure. The influential landholder, under the new regime, finds it more difficult to encroach on the weak, and the holders of land in fee simple can improve their land with the assurance that they themselves will enjoy the benefits of increased yield and enhanced value. … Further, the assessment of the land tax is no longer a matter of guess work, or of the biased opinion of interested parties. The tax on land is fixed for each parcel according to its assessed value."³⁴

Concession Through Aggression

Despite the unprecedented effort to safeguard the peasant class, the Palestinian Arab leadership orchestrated a massive three-year-long strike characterized by rioting, violence, and murder. It was directed against the British government and Jewish communities, though it eventually devolved into an internal war among Arab politicians. Two major complaints fueling this strike were continued Jewish immigration and Jewish land purchases.

The British caved under the pressure and exclusively penalized the Jewish community in an attempt to passify Arab outrage. A White Paper was issued in 1939 that capped Jewish immigration and severely restricted where Jews could buy land. Reminiscent of apartheid South Africa where the Land Act of 1913 prevented blacks from owning land in all but 10% of the country and encouraged segregation²⁶, the Land Transfer Clause in Palestine (implemented in 1940) allowed for Jewish land purchases in only 5% of Palestine without restrictions. 63% of the land was entirely off limits, while 32% of the land required a special permit from the High Commissioner.²⁷

So belligerently racist was Britain's land restriction that a joint Anglo-American report conducted in 1946 concluded, “The Land Transfers Regulations of 1940 sought to protect the Arab tenant and small owner by prohibiting the sale of land save to a Palestinian Arab in one zone, by restricting such sales in another, and allowing unrestricted sale of land only in the third zone. Their effect has been such as to amount to discrimination against the Jews; their tendency is to segregate and keep separate Arabs and Jews."²⁸

Ripple Effect

The Land Transfer Clause carried unintended consequences for the Palestinian Arab community. First of all, it viewed Arabs as a people with so little foresight or understanding that their decisions had to be made for them. As if they suffered from an irresponsible lust for money that interfered with any rational choices they would have otherwise made, their option to sell was simply taken away. Jews weren't able to freely buy land in 95% of Palestine which meant Palestinian Arab small landholders were not able to sell land freely in 95% of Palestine.

"Landowners who feared that their property would lose value because it was in areas where sale to Jews was forbidden put their holdings on the market as soon as the law was published but before it went into effect. Many villagers now needed money and consented to sell their land; lawyers and government officials agreed to help conclude the deals under the table."²⁹

In fact, "After the application of the Land Transfer Regulations in 1940, Sir John Shuckburgh of the Colonial Office remarked that 'the Arab landowner [needed] to be protected against himself.'"³⁰ Kenneth Stein remarks, "In 1940, the British changed their role from umpire to advocate. The land transfer restrictions were as much an effort to stop Jewish land purchase as to protect the Palestinian Arab against his own willful indiscretion."³¹

"The gambit took advantage of exceptions to the areas in which Jews were forbidden to buy land. For example, such purchases were permitted when the land was offered for sale by the courts because of the landowner’s debts, or when the landlord owed money to Jews and wished to repay his debt in real estate rather than in cash. KKL found ways to take advantage of these provisions. One fairly simple method was to locate Arab landowners who were debtors and had open files in the executor’s office. KKL representatives contacted these debtors and offered large sums of money for their land. Once the property owner agreed, the sellers applied to the executor’s office and put the land up for auction. In some cases KKL offered larger sums than other bidders, and in other instances there were no other bidders; the two sides in the deal would conclude it in the presence of Jewish officials in the executor’s office in Tel Aviv before anyone else got involved. In spring 1943 ... [the] Jews had, since the publication of the restrictions, used this method to purchase more than 20,000 dunams in the Gaza district alone. Some in the British administration disputed this estimate, but not the fact that the method was in use. ... The debtors were free to sell as much as they wished – and some did. It was clear to all that these were voluntary transactions, and that the Arab sellers were no less interested in them than the Zionists. But the governor of the Gaza district maintained that the administration nevertheless had to take steps to halt the practice."³²

Cancelling one's right to sell private property is as unjust as expropriating it, but on the other end of the spectrum. Especially since doing so amounted to preventing debt-ridden Arab landowners from taking advantage of the traditionally high prices Jews were willing to pay for land and paying off their debt with perhaps some money to spare. It also robbed Arabs of their option to sell their land and transition to non-agricultural trades that were becoming more prominent (and much more profitable) as Palestine modernized.

"Yehoshua Hankin told Hope-Simpson at the JNF office in June 1930 that 90 percent of the sellers were immersed in debt and were seeking relief by selling their lands. The economic situation of the majority rural Arab population had not improved since the end of World War I, and their economic condition in the early 1930s worsened."³³

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Navigate this series:

Part 1 - Introduction to Dispossession in Palestine
Part 2 - Arab Dispossession Methods
Part 3 - Jewish Dispossession Methods
Part 4 - How Many were Disposessed?
Part 5 - Arab Land Sales
Part 6 - Preventing Dispossession
Part 7 - Improvements for the Fellahin

Footnotes:
¹ Stein, Kenneth W. One Hundred Years of Social Change: The Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. 1991.
² Stein, Kenneth W. "Legal Protection and Circumvention of Rights for Cultivators in Mandatory Palestine. <http://www.ismi.emory.edu>
³ Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Jewish Problems in Palestine and Europe. A Survey of Palestine Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. [Jerusalem?]: Printed by the Government Printer, Palestine, 1946. 45.
⁴ Stein, Kenneth W. Legal Protection and Circumvention of Rights for Cultivators in Mandatory Palestine
⁵ French, Lewis. "Supplementary Report on Agricultural Development and Land Settlement in Palestine", Director of Development, Jerusalem, April 20, 1932
⁶ Report by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations of the Administration of Palestine and Trans-Jordan, 31 December 1933
⁷ Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Jewish Problems in Palestine and Europe. A Survey of Palestine Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. [Jerusalem?]: Printed by the Government Printer, Palestine, 1946. 290.
⁸ League of Nations. Report by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Trans-Jordan for the year 1931. 31 December 1931.
⁹ Stein, Kenneth W. Legal Protection and Circumvention of Rights for Cultivators in Mandatory Palestine
¹⁰ Stein, Kenneth W. Legal Protection and Circumvention of Rights for Cultivators in Mandatory Palestine
¹¹ Stein, Kenneth W. Legal Protection and Circumvention of Rights for Cultivators in Mandatory Palestine
¹² French, Lewis. "Supplementary Report on Agricultural Development and Land Settlement in Palestine", Director of Development, Jerusalem, April 20, 1932
¹³ French, Lewis. "Supplementary Report on Agricultural Development and Land Settlement in Palestine", Director of Development, Jerusalem, April 20, 1932
¹⁴ French, Lewis. "Supplementary Report on Agricultural Development and Land Settlement in Palestine", Director of Development, Jerusalem, April 20, 1932
¹⁵ The Tenants of Wadi Hawarith: Another View of the Land Question in Palestine" by Raya Adler, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2. (May, 1988), pg. 203.
¹⁶ The Tenants of Wadi Hawarith: Another View of the Land Question in Palestine" by Raya Adler, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2. (May, 1988), pg. 209.
¹⁷ French, Lewis. "First Report on Agricultural Development and Land Settlement in Palestine," Director of Development, Jerusalem, December 23,1931
¹⁸ Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Jewish Problems in Palestine and Europe. A Survey of Palestine Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. [Jerusalem?]: Printed by the Government Printer, Palestine, 1946. 290-291.
¹⁹ Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Jewish Problems in Palestine and Europe. A Survey of Palestine Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. [Jerusalem?]: Printed by the Government Printer, Palestine, 1946. 291-292.
²⁰ Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Jewish Problems in Palestine and Europe. A Survey of Palestine Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. [Jerusalem?]: Printed by the Government Printer, Palestine, 1946. 292-294.
²¹ Stein, Kenneth W. Legal Protection and Circumvention of Rights for Cultivators in Mandatory Palestine
²² Stein, Kenneth W. Legal Protection and Circumvention of Rights for Cultivators in Mandatory Palestine
²³ Stein, Kenneth W. Legal Protection and Circumvention of Rights for Cultivators in Mandatory Palestine
²⁴ HANSARD. Land Ownership and Tenancy HC Deb 17 June 1936 vol 313 cc974-5.
²⁵ Stein, Kenneth W. The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. 142.
²⁶ Bookman, Milica Zarkovic. The Demographic Struggle for Power: The Political Economy of Demographic Engineering in the Modern World. London: Frank Cass, 1997. 176.
²⁷ Cohen, Hillel. Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 189.
²⁸ Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. April 20, 1946.
²⁹ Cohen, Hillel. Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 190.
³⁰ Stein, Kenneth W. The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. 219
³¹ Stein, Kenneth W. Legal Protection and Circumvention of Rights for Cultivators in Mandatory Palestine
³² Cohen, Hillel. Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 192.
³³ Stein, Kenneth W. "The Jewish National Fund: Land Purchase Methods and Priorities, 1924-1939". Middle Eastern Studies. Volume 20 Number 2, April 1984. 190-205.
³⁴ Crist, Raymond E. "Land for the Fellahin, VIII: Land Tenure and Land Use in the Near East". American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Jul., 1959). 423