Did the Palestinians sell their land to the Jews in the 1940s?

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At the beginning of his seven visits, the wealthy British Jew, Sir Moses Montefiore, traveled to Palestine in 1827, in order to explore its locations and to know the conditions of his people; to surprise him their reality, the presence of about 500 Jews in a terrible state of poverty and decline, distributed between Tel al-Qadi north and well The seven south, which angered and grieved Sir, pushed him to the upper door of the Ottoman Empire, asking for permission to build a number of shelters to accommodate these ground Jews.

It was not much until Montefiore acquired the first Jewish land in Palestine. "As a result of the British intervention with the Ottoman authorities, Sultan Farmana was issued in 1849 allowing the Jews to buy land in the Holy Land." [1] Jewish land on land outside the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem, which was soon recognized officially by the Ottoman authorities with the issuance of the law of expropriation of foreigners in 1869; to put the nucleus of the first Jewish neighborhood in Palestine [2].

From Britain to Palestine again, the days go on, and the armies of the British Crown set foot on the land of Olives with the defeat of the ailing European man - the Ottoman Empire - in World War I and the distribution of the estate to the Allies, whom Britain won its authority over Palestine in 1918. British Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour's famous November 2, 1917 letter to the Jewish Lord, Walter de Rothschild, a member of the wealthy Rothschild family, indicates the support of the British Government for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine , Saying: "The Government of His Majesty T. Zer favorably to establish a national shrine in Palestine for the Jewish people, and will make their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this goal .. ".

How can this happen? It was inconceivable. Until this year, the number of Jews in Palestine - after the sudden emigration - reached 50,000 Jews, 7.2% of the total population [3], who in turn own only about 2.4% of the territory of Palestine [1]. For those? It may seem confusing at the beginning, which is confirmed by Dr. "Ibrahim Hijazi" in his book "The Social Roots of the Nakba" as this concept of "national homeland" remained confused and completely unclear to the people of the country of the Palestinian Arabs; With time. But, to anything al?

It was the Palestinians who sold their land to the Jews. The propaganda that filled the minds of many Arabs before the Jews paid tribute, how can we deal with this claim? Is this what really created a Jewish homeland in the heart of Palestine? Did these people really sell their land and then weep over it? And they sold here mean that we are talking about the majority, not the exceptions, or is it just a fast-paced lie, carrying the acquittal of conscience that helps it - the lie - to spread? Did Israel claim the land it really owned, or did Britain not only have Moses Montefiore alone to form the Jewish homeland in Palestine?

From commons to property

On a simple journey into the past, ending in the 19th century, with a glimpse of the Ottoman lands of Palestine, we find that the majority of the desert is adjacent to the plain plains of olive trees, vineyards, orange trees and fields of simple peasants, which surround their villages common to all: everyone can work, and everyone Benefits of cutting them over the years.

This communal, which constituted 70% of the Palestinian territories until the year of the Mandate, was distributed by lot among the villagers in each cycle, to benefit by cultivating a family other than its predecessor, and thus the land rotated between them, without selling, buying or title deeds, which did not The Ottoman Land Code was enacted in 1858, followed by the Tabu system in 1859 [2], and then proclaimed in 1861 and commented on by its annexes in 1867, which “confirmed that private land must be registered on the name of its user and owner” [4].

The state had previously granted the land to the owners of the Timar and the leaders, in turn to the peasants in return for fees and taxes paid by the latter, until the end of feudalism, the task of distribution to the taxpayers and tax collectors, who were granting the peasant then a proof of his right to the land. It was not complicated in this new image, so the farmer - even - if he lost his document was enough oral testimonies from the people of his village; the most important in that - according to "Daibes Murr" [5] - is to seize and exploit them, and was not in the interest of any one nor He can “fight the farmer against his right to land as long as he continues to cultivate it and fulfill his tax obligations.

The taboo was issued, and the obligors and collectors were finally banned from granting any title deeds or disposal, and were limited to the money commissioners - the bookkeepers and the directors of the courts - and were considered the authorized delegates to assign and transfer the land. Of course, it was not up to the peasants, because they found themselves, according to "Akram Hijazi", in front of three deadlocks of them - in the case of registration of the taboo - the first is the exposure of their children to military recruitment, which was one of the causes of social panic; Definition The village 's energy on human supply during war.

The second is the economic deficit in front of the tabu fees and tax dues, the latest being the lack of confidence in the state that abolished the registration system with the endowment glasses, to prevent the peasants from stopping their land to evade registration, and activating the role of the courts that were prohibited from considering any lawsuit whose owner did not have a formal queue deed. It was not easy for the peasant to "bear the burden of conscription, which impoverished the land from its social resources, ruined agriculture and significantly reduced the standard of living," as well as "forced to pay the tithe and other taxes".

These three reasons forced the peasants to collectively and stubbornly evade the Tabu law, and not to benefit from its updated changes, which did not prepare the society for its existence, which led them to a dangerous sliding threat to their possession of land that is no longer recognized or guaranteed to its users. Nor was the stubbornness of the countryside an obstacle to the functioning of the Ottoman legislations.

From peasant to capital

As a result of the three predicaments, rural land ownership was concentrated only in the hands of a few wealthy people able to carry the burdens of the new land. For the larger families, most of which were from Lebanon and Syria, European-Zionist capitalism was less and more active transformations than before.

The Arab families were divided into two types, according to Hijazi, the first of the leading families, who were based in the cities to exercise their activities and influence, or those influential rural families, who ruled the mountains and slopes of curves and organized their authority within the framework of what is known as power. The elders. Hijazi states that these families grew their wealth through the looting of farmers, the commitment of taxes, the trade of money and usury. The second type of wealthy families, some of whom worked as supervisors of the properties of the endowment and inherited the work until it became their place of residence and their property with time.

Shami and Lebanese families were able to acquire vast areas of Palestine, such as Sursock, Al-Omari Damascene, Al-Qabbani, Al-Akrawi, and others, with 57 thousand dunums for the Shami families and half a million for the Lebanese. ], Along with some members of an Ottoman subordination as an Iranian Baha'i from Iran and Count Shedid from Egypt, [6] but the Lebanese Sursock family, of Greek Orthodox origin, remains the major contributor to the land transformation. After being Arab to Jewish infiltrators, according to the "Emile al-Ghouri" that they sold about 400 thousand acres to the Jews, including their ownership in Marj Bani p Command.

As for the small peasant owners, the moneylender played an active role in the loss of their land, after relying on them to the wealthy big cities, who began to lure the peasants with financial facilities in lending, especially in times of taxes, accumulated year after year so that these poor people did not seem to be abandoned in Their land in return for their debts, but they remained as labor, in a privilege that the Jews will not afford them when their authority on the land is extended. State intervention also contributed to another type of land transfer to the wealthy when it transferred to the possession of what it considered to be redundant villages - communal lands - in addition to the seizure of large areas of communal Bedouin agricultural villages in the south under the pretext of non-payment of the allowance of the Tabu or due taxes , Which is then followed by a direct bid for that land in the public auction, and then the ownership of the land is transferred to the wealthy alone.

This disintegration contributed to a social transformation, which in turn was not limited to being an economic system of land management, but also extended to be a refuge for the farmer when he was unable to pay his taxes, the solution was simple by seeking another land to cultivate or lease and pay out. The situation in the shadow of the tabu has gradually shifted to a different pattern in which the peasant collides with lands that he would not be able to exploit without the taboo from which he originally fled.

This dilemma of the peasant, with the other openness of the wealthy class, was met on the other side by another capitalist incursion of the Zionist capital, both its individual and collective aspects, which emerged with the law of foreign ownership [a]. The first type appeared in what is termed “Hijazi” in early practical Zionism. Montfiori and other capitalists, such as the French richest Baron Edmond Rothschild, founded the first agricultural school on the land of the village of Yazur in Jaffa after he was granted the right to lease it for ninety-nine years with an Ottomanman. [2]

Unlike this type, which included many early settlements, the second type emerged as “advanced practical Zionism” with political orientation and capital, based on slow settlement, and effective in the long run. The aim of this type was to link the old settlements because the current fragmentation hinders the dream of the desired national homeland, which carried the banner of the Zionist leader and the most talented theorist "Menachem Ushkin."

He noted that one of the obstacles to the Jewish dream lies in the continued work of the Arab peasants in Jewish settlements, which angered Rothschild so much. "Uschkin" in his program "Our Program", said: "Every nation seeks an independent political entity." To this end, it must take into account three necessary situations: the situation of the people, the state of the country, and external conditions. The land should be under the control of the people and a spiritual relationship between it and them, in addition to providing a political program to woo foreign public opinion of the movement of these people.

Oshkin concluded that in order for the ownership of the land of Palestine to be realized for the Jewish people, two essential steps must be taken: the purchase of the land from its owners, and the concern that the Jews actually settle the land and not leave it to Arab labor. For this purpose, Jewish institutions were established to activate the purchase in larger quantities and better temptations, headed by "Jewish Trust Fund - Yekt", "British Palestinian Company - Bank", "Jewish National Fund - Kern Kayemet" and "Foundation for Palestine - Kern Hisod".

However, with the temptation of Jewish institutions to Arab owners or even long-leased land from the Ottoman government - under the Aliens Act - Jewish ownership until the British Mandate of Ottoman rule in 1914 was no more than 245,581 dunums, or about 1%, of Palestine. Total [8], a figure that is unimaginable compared to the property of Arabs from the land, so the mandate had another opinion to double this number, but did it make a difference?

Banding

Government intervention - in political practice during the Ottoman rule - remained limited and indirect between the people and their government. The collection of taxes and the mobilization of military personnel was only a seasonal utilitarian. On the contrary, Britain has ensured that the mandate of the Mandate government is as direct and expeditious as possible, which would not have occurred without restructuring the country's infrastructure to enable the colonial forces to have greater and more coherent control over their dispersed parts.

For this reason, the colonial authority began to work in two parallel directions: the development of the transportation and communications network, and the construction of a financial system to finance its activities locally, which, because of the first, is able to survey and survey all lands and villages - and then convert what it can convert into Jewish property - and through the second development It supports its local activities in promoting settlement efforts and moving towards Jewish Palestine [2].

During the period from 1921 to 1937, the government spent about 1.65 million pounds on the construction and paving of roads, and another 1,265,000 pounds on maintenance. [7] The modernization also included railways, ports, postal and telegraph services. As for the financial system, the structure of the public finances and their realized trends then showed a distinctive pattern “translated British colonial hegemony allied with Zionist institutional management” [2].

This model resulted from the absence of the Department of National Development, which represents the majority of the Arab population in Palestine during that period, as the government carved out the marginalization of any Arab presence, and even support Zionist projects at the expense of Arab projects, even if the same idea has already been an Arab investor [2]. The structure of the financial system, according to a report by the Palestinian Wafa Agency, were both the structural structure of the public finance system and the tax system that was followed, the public financial developments, as well as the structure of the financial system of the Zionist institutions.

While the budget of Palestine was prepared in London and approved and approved by the British Minister of Colonies - "Winston Churchill" at the time - without reference to any representative of the people of Palestine, the municipal councils budget was subject to the approval of the governor of the brigade, who was appointed with the consent of the British High Commissioner In Palestine. According to the same report, the public finance structure was based on direct revenues, which consisted mainly of income tax, indirect taxes based on customs duties, licenses, fees, services, quasi-commercial projects and other revenues.

This is unlike the village property tax. In the first half of 1935, the Mandate government abolished two Osman taxes: the tithes tax (12.5% ​​reduced to 10%) and the Wirku tax - the land tax in rural areas - (6.24 per thousand of the value of the princely land). The property tax law in cities and villages was replaced by tax on buildings used in villages on the basis of their net annual value, while cultivable land was divided into Estimating the degree of fertility, and set a tax rate on each acre of 10% m The estimated net yield, and the tax on land planted with citrus trees was estimated at 12.5% ​​of the net income on the basis that the owners of acidic yarns are more financially able to pay than grain farmers, which proved the opposite. [9]

Who doesn't have, who doesn't deserve

Then, as a further step - after the peasants were heavily taxed - the Mandatory government began enacting other aspects of the land system, with the aim of increasing the state's share of the princely land, thereby facilitating its passage to the Jews, with the enactment of a permanent exception giving the High Commissioner absolute rights to grant land as required. Public interest". During his tenure as High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel issued half a dozen laws that abolished all Ottoman systems that prevented Jews from owning immovable property - land and property - in Palestine.

The Land Transition Law, which allowed exchange companies to mortgage land in exchange for their loans, was passed and provided for the transfer of land to commercial companies to set up their businesses, which was followed by “official recognition of the JNF as a public interest institution entitled to purchase land” [10]. The law also abolished article 22 of the circular issued on June 24, 1918, which prohibits courts from issuing an order for the sale of immovable property pursuant to a judgment or fulfillment of a pledge; two weeks later, the High Commissioner ordered the establishment of land tribunals entrusted with the adjudication of disputes. To order the sale of land pursuant to a judgment or fulfillment of a mortgage. The law also prohibits any Palestinian resident abroad from owning any land in his or her home. [2]

Also, the decommissioned land law was issued in 1920, which states that all lands that dissolve because heirs are interrupted or not cultivated for a period of three years will appear in the technical survey of unrestricted lands even if they are under control, and then they are owned by the state. Then the law of favorable land - owned without a tabu - amended to Article 103 of the Ottoman Land Law, which stipulates that everyone who succeeds or exploits vacant land without the approval of the administration, has no minimum right to own this land, and even exposes himself to trial if not The Registrar of Land shall notify the Tabu Department within two months of the promulgation of this law. [11]

The expropriation laws are a dramatic and realistic example of the Balfour Declaration, which can often seem ironic. The 1926 law of Lord Bloomer, the second delegate, provided for absolute rights of the state to expropriate land, whether by negotiation with its owners. , Or by force of law, as long as the matter is subject to the rubber term called "public benefit", for the sake of the eyes of entrepreneurs, either to purchase or the right to use or to have any right to accompany it necessary for the project.

If the project owners are unable to do so, they may, in accordance with Article V of the law, submit to the High Commissioner for approval his declaration or declarations of negotiation referred to, and the High Commissioner may either refrain from expressing his consent or grant it after making the amendments he desires in a declaration or Declarations of negotiation, all of course - and, fairly, according to the "public good" that only the venerable Mandate Government knows of. [12]

This law was followed by a number of other laws, such as the Forestry Act of March 1926, in which Article 3 authorized the High Commissioner to seize any forest that is not privately owned under government supervision as a preserved forest, and that it does not transfer the right to or from a reserved forest. It shall be transferred by grant, lease, mortgage or any other type of disposition except with the consent of the High Commissioner [13]. The law on the settlement of property rights, which was followed two years later, and the right of the High Commissioner to settle and register property rights in the lands in any area, resulted in the settlement of ownership in 107 villages permanently and out of the communal land, while the bulk of Palestine remained unequal, but It seems striking that the settlement was centered on the coastal plains away from the mountainous and desert areas where Jews do not buy [2] [14].

The Land Acquisition Act for General Purposes in 1943 provided a brief expression of the British Government's mandate during its mandate and its intention to pass on land ownership to the Jews, which would become clear after the Nakba.This law allowed the High Commissioner to take possession of any land at all, or any right of easement. Such land or property shall also entitle him to order persons claiming any right, or benefit in the land to be appropriated, to raise their hand thereof [15].

With this package of laws, Britain increased the government's control over private land, which helped develop the transportation infrastructure, which enabled the government to extend its influence to land under the control of no one across the country; to Britain in 1946 a total of about one and a half acres Almost from the land [SA]. As a result, the proportion of the public domain (the biggest obstacle to Zionist ownership) has fallen from 70% in 1918 to 56% of the entire Palestinian territory in 1923, to 46% in 1929 and to about 40% in 1940. [3]

Of course, it did not stop there. According to the Mandate documents and the Mandate Constitution of Palestine, "privilege" appears on the scene as a right of the government to freely dispose of the land under the repeated flexible argument: "public benefit." Consequently, the beneficiary of the concession can enjoy all the laws of expropriation and land settlement to expand the area of ​​the concession area. Hijazi states that the government did not take into account the principle of "distributing wealth in a way that does not contradict the civil rights of other groups" and could not rely on any legal justification for its policy.

The year of concessions, then, enabled the Jews, according to Ghassan Kanafani [16], to control the infrastructure of the Palestinian economy (wealth in the ground), leading to a near total collapse in the Palestinian Arab economy. It is noteworthy in this context, according to "Abdul Jawad Saleh" and "Walid Mustafa", [17] that the capital that monopolized the privileges granted to the institutions or Zionist companies amounted to about 90% of the total capital of franchise companies in Palestine.

The Jews also argued, according to the sixth clause of the instrument, that the government did not equate them with the Arabs in leasing their lands, while these lands were under the hands of Palestinians from the Ottoman period, even if they were from the lands of the Sultan, because no one was disputing the peasant's own land. As well as being vacated by it, which did not continue in the British era, it proved at the end of 1943 that the controversy of the Jews was empty; because they rented 125088 dunums of state land compared to 1222 others were the share of Arabs for rent, privileges also outweighed the Arabs in terms of long-term [2].

A land with people

"I support forced deportation, and I see nothing immoral"

(David Ben-Gurion)

A land without people for a people without land, the popular Zionist idea, promoted by the movement at the hands of its largest leaders such as "Israel Zangwill" and "Theodor Herzl" and others, resulting in what is needless to mention and clarification. However, a simple fact remains absent from this popular propaganda: that Palestine was not a land without people, as this is simply the case, because almost one and a half million people occupied that land, which allegedly usurped most of Israel with pretexts, including that it bought the land of the ancestors.

Another fact to keep in mind is that despite Ottoman property laws, simple in their concessions, and British property laws that were quick to give land to Jews, as will come, Jews did not leave Palestine during decades of purchase and circumvention by only 5.7% [1] In its maximum estimates, it is estimated at 6.7% of the land of Palestine [2], of which the percentage of peasants who bought it under the conditions of borrowing, usury and financial pressure on them reached 9.4%, while the remaining 90.6% of the landowners and absentee land owners and land Government, churches, foreign companies, and mandate grants [2].

These properties were concentrated in the north and below the south, down to the south along the coast, to be severely reduced in the central cities, which resulted, according to "Hijazi" - a major structural imbalance in the level of economic and social relations, as well as population and cultural - in cities with Jewish density - due to the impoverishment of settlements and cities that depend on trade with neighboring towns, the evacuation, which was required by the Jews on the large owners when buying them, led to the loss of farmers for their work, and then the problem of unemployment and the economic decline of the Palestinians in the cities mentioned in the north. Sursock's family was alone It has evacuated a quarter of a million dunams of land in Marj Bani Amer, displacing 20-25 villages with a population of approximately 2,546 families, some 15,000 people.

Not much time has passed until these events are told. Jewish immigration has increased exponentially, bringing its inhabitants close to one-third of the landowners, and the tone of the division, which was eventually voted on by the majority of the fledgling UN members, escalated and eventually the decision to divide. Palestine to a Jewish and Arab state and a neutral international mandate in Jerusalem, but what is ridiculous indeed is that the land granted to the Jewish state in the resolution was estimated at 15261649 dunums - 56.47% of the area of ​​Palestine -, while the property of all Jews during the previous era did not exceed 1383858 Dunma, less than half of the property The Arabs were within these borders 3577825 dunums, while the rest were either belonging to the state property which is Arab, or they were exploited by Arab families, tribes and tribes under the commons and land disposal systems.

Even the census did not allow such a division, which was ultimately rejected by both Jews and Arabs, for things to proceed as they were known. On May 14, 1948, the Zionist forces proclaimed the establishment of their alleged state, and the next day the first Arab war with the Israelis erupted; It ends at the borders of the truce, which Syria signed in July 1948, and a new state is declared over 77.4% of the land area from which they never owned this percentage.

Then it was not difficult for those who usurped all of this to enact theatrical laws that justify him to seize the property of Palestinians already robbed, such as the absentee law that robbed every land absent from the owner or traveled outside the borders of the truce or the seven Arab countries of war, even Islamic endowments were robbed by the same law Over a million citizens can become overnight refugees who are not alienated, and have no mercy on those who have failed them on a groundless basis. Money in the dust, but Khdboh much We see blood.

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Footnotes

A: The expropriation of foreign Jews was abolished from this law in 1881, and Jewish expropriation was generally abolished in 1892, according to the attached video sources.