The issue of sale of Palestine’s lands to Jews

In 1881, during the assassination of Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, Jews were accused of murdering Tsar, and were persecuted in Russia and Eastern Europe. These pressures led to the emigration of many Jews to Western Europe. Scattered groups and some of them migrated to Palestine. On the other hand, the first Zionist propaganda in the necessity of Jewish immigration to Palestine and settlement in those lands that were built for a short time, led to entrance of small groups of this tribe to the land of Palestine across the country, without a special order and organization. The immigrants each bought pieces of agricultural lands and started group plantation together. In fact they established the primary core of cooperative and collective activities of Jews which were called "kibbutz" later.
Since 1897, after the first Zionist conference, these migrations accelerated, and became more orderly and wealthy Rothschild family and other Jewish capitalists started financial supports for buying these lands for Jewish immigrants to Palestine.
In response to the resolutions of the conference of Wing, "Mohammad Tahir Hussain (mufti of Jerusalem at the time) became the head of a native council in order to face conspiracy of Jewish settlement. According to the historical documents the efforts of this board eventually prevented increasing encroachments of Jews to new arable lands”.
In short, until the late nineteenth century, sporadic and limited immigration of Jews to Palestine, and buying a piece of agricultural land of there, in order to engage in agriculture and livelihood, did not arise the serious sensitivity and concern of Arabs, and these Jews, like other native Jews of Palestine, lived side by side with other Christians and Muslims in a peaceful way.
But since the early years of the twentieth century that the rapid pace of emigration became widespread and organized, this matter faced another state and the Palestinians began to doubt about this matter and more or less led to some protests and reactions.
At the same time, "Sayyid Muhammad Rashid Reza (one of the students of Sheikh Muhammad Abduh and Sayyid Jamal al-Din Afghani) who was living in Egypt played a major role in exposing the true nature of Jewish immigration. He gave voice to counter the threat of Zionism for the first time in Al-Manar magazine (one of the manifestations of Islamic awakening at the time)”.
By the Balfour Declaration, the Zionist Jews found a confident and powerful support to carry out their Zionist objectives, so they started a wave of activity and mobility in immigration to Palestine and buying land with an indescribable hope and excitement. “Jewish settlement in Palestine of the Rothschild Brothers Bank and other banks could steal Palestine’s extensive zones of fertile and agricultural lands and could drive the Arab farmers out of their lands by force. For the prevention of selling lands to Arabs, Jewish representation, (Jewish ethnic Fund) was founded to purchase lands with money which was collected by the Jews outside the Palestine. The lands that were bought with this money could not be sold; because they were given to Jewish immigrants as rent for a time between 35 and 49 years”.
As the purchase of properties was increased by the Fund, the Fund was trying to choose the parts adjacent to each other in order to create the geographical core of a democratic country. During the decade of the 1930s, the Jewish National Fund bought some lands in the region of "Haifa" in Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, in the region of Tel Aviv and the "Galilee". Jewish Agency built some instructions which were called "wooden gate and watchtower” in the bought lands ". The fortress was built in order to establish a state there and they were in areas where Jews had never lived there before.
Jews founded three independent organizations for achieving the lands of Palestine:
1. Jewish population of Palestine’ reconstruction (Beika) which was formed by Baron Edmond Rothschild’s aid.
2. Investors Jewish population (Karen Kaymet) that by the year 1944 acquired 86 thousand hectares of land, and the rule ceded a considerable amount of public lands to them.
3. Organization (Karen Hayesod) was founded in 1931, and gave long-term low interest loans to Jewish farmers.
All the land sellers were more of the following groups:
1. absent owners (non-resident in the country) that were mostly of the Lebanese feudal families.
2. The Ottoman Empire that recorded the land of farmers who were unable to pay their taxes and sold them through public auction.
3. Palestinian owners who were mostly from Christian families.
Another group of people who had lost their lands to the Jews was a group of Palestinian thugs who were influenced by the popularity of the materialist culture of the West and immoralities that saw themselves in need of money for providing costs of their corruption and debauchery and revelry. In this case, Ihsan Nimr writes:
At the end of the Ottoman Caliphate, the Ottoman government had allowed the opening of centers for the sale of alcohol and prostitution centers (something that had not already been done before). These bars were held everywhere and large numbers of young people were addicted to drinking and made them go to the corruption centers. Wickedness and corruption, such as gambling and addiction to cannabis became popular among the youth. In a way that the matter was one of the most important factors of transferring lands and properties to Jews...
David Hirst writes: about nine-tenths of the sold lands to the Jews by the year 1929 belonged to absent owners of lands, but apart from that, in spite of the growing "danger of Zionism" most responsible people were the property owners in the country who were present there. On the other side, Arab usurers came into existence with all the powers, and weak landowners were forced to receive loans with high interest sometimes up to 50%. They desperately tried to stick to their small pieces of lands, but they were eventually forced to leave their lands under the weight of crushing debts to land speculators and greedy Jews. There were significant benefits that moved to mouth water: the price of land around Rishon Lezion which was usually eight shillings, in the early thirties, increased to 10 to 25 pounds.
The appointment of Herbert Samuel as the British High Commissioner in Palestine opened a new door into the occupation of Palestinian lands for the benefit of the Jewish.
In December 1920, Weizmann wrote to Samuel and noticed that because he is leaving the United States in order to make money for the expansion of Jewish complexes in Palestine, Samuel should assure him that whenever necessary he will provide lands for Jewish settlement”.
... Samuel replied: "newly formed Land Commission, of course, will be able to find a convincing answer to this question after a comprehensive study and evaluation of every inch of Palestinian lands and will give a considerable proportion of suitable lands for your purpose.
Most important matter is the existence of extensive lands owned by individuals or various tribes that only in some parts of them agriculture is done. The owners of this land for sure are willing to sell their land by getting significant amounts of money, and the government is prepared to encourage such transactions so that they can be used for construction of the complex...
It should be understood that in some states of Palestine, especially in the South state, due to population density, plenty of lands belongs to the people much more than they need them....
One of the first actions of Samuel after arriving in Palestine was that “he banned the export of grain and oil, the foundation of the wealth of the country so that the domestic markets of these products would be filled, prices would fall and farmers would be helpless from payment of taxes and loans, therefore they will sell their lands to Jews”.

Henry Ford wrote:

Samuel fired an English employee who had prohibited Jews to adopt evil practices to dominate the Arab’s lands.
Jews by using their traditional and famous methods in Palestine, put the Arabs under heavy economic pressure. This means that in the years following the First World War, with rising prices and the economic crisis of those years coincided with drought and water scarcity, the Palestinian Arabs faced with many economic difficulties. In such emergencies, the Jews began to give usury loans with heavy interest to the Arabs, and when they were unable to pay repayment to Jews, their lands were seized at favorable prices. The Anglo Palestine Bank, which belonged to the Jewish capitalists, played a major and active role in helping Jews. Herbert Samuel approved with the Jews operations and put his full support in them. On the other hand, another English bank was responsible for helping the Arabs to protect their lands.
This Bank provided financial needs of Arabs by giving loans at low interest and easy terms. Repayment of this bank’s loans was not at once and in a short time such as Jews’ loans. Arabs could lay hostage their lands in order to pay their loans over five years, and if at this time they could not afford their payments, the mentioned lands belonged to the bank, and the bank could sell them to anyone even a non-Jew.
But since it was not coordinated with targets of Jews, the director of the Bank was dismissed by the Great Britain high Commissioner, Herbert Samuel.
Samuel stated the law of transfer of lands in 1920. Under this law, the sale of immovable property was allowed only for the inhabitants of Palestine, and only with the permission of the government.
Purpose of Samuel of enactment of this act was to provide the facilities for the purchase of lands by Jewish immigrants and preventing the purchase of lands by the Arab feudalists who lived outside of Palestine.
A year later (1921 C.) another legal provision attached to the land transfer law during which the price of lands decreased and new facilities were provided for the transfer of lands to Jews.
in 1920 he expropriated many native Arab lands according to another law known as "acquiring land for the benefit of the army", under the pretext of development of government’s projects.
on the other side the heavy land taxes for owners who lived outside of Palestine forced them to sell their lands.
Other action of Samuel was exclusive ownership of agricultural equipment and land and livestock of Arab farmers were confiscated under the pretext of being in debt. Once taxes were added so much that the Arab farmers put their lands for sale in order to pay and get rid of their debts.
Following the implementation of this policy, the headed government provided means of purchase for Jews to buy more than twenty thousand hectares of "Marj Ibn Amer" whose owners lived outside Palestine.
This area included 22 villages and about nine hundred Arab families, who were the owners or lessees or farmers, were forced to be replaced by Jewish immigrants.
In the 1920s and 1930s, nearly half of all lands which were ready for cultivation, had condominiums, and this was something that made ground ownership difficult for the Zionist organizations. British men tried so hard to remove this barrier and issued a special law that would allow farmers to separate a part of their lands apart and leave the condominium. Many of these farmers as soon as leaving the condominium became the bait of association of "Jewish settlements in Palestine".
... Imperialist policy of the British and the Zionists also vitiated Arabs living in wilderness. In this way that with encouragement of local rule of Great Britain, Zionist Organizations purchased very large areas of lands which were grazing of livestock from tribal chiefs and this made farmers more deprived and made them abandon their homeland, Palestine, and move to eastern Jordan, Syria or Arabic island.
At the same time, the British people started actions and took steps to calm the Arab owners who were angry of "Jewish settlement". For example, the British military governor stated a new law in which everyone had to register all their lands in new offices, and they had to receive the document of ownership of property. Colonial administrators and local feudalists applied the maximum effort to conceal this fact from farmers and have their grounds. Besides, those farmers who knew of such a law did not register their lands to avoid heavy taxes, known and unknown, or they pretended them less than they were, and big local owners took advantages of innocence of these farmers, and registered many grounds in their own names and received ownership documents.
Another trick led by British agents to seize Palestinian lands was this: “in 1928 they stated a law that forced farmers to sell their lands to do any work in the public interest. On the basis of this law, the senior representative of Great Britain was given the right to expropriate any land which colonists needed to build military bases, ports, drag rail, car road, or others.
The World Zionist Organization established the Palestine Foundation (Keren Hayesod) to provide Jewish settlement’ costs of purchased lands by the Jewish National Fund In 1920. Zionist habitants formed a force called the "Haganah" (self-defense force including militia of “Hashomer”) to be responsible for protecting their lands. Brandeis said proudly: Arabs will soon find that they cannot see this power as a weak one.
One of the main tasks of the "Haganah" in this case was deciding on where fund should buy lands and build settlements in. Gen. Alon said: "A number of officers in the army determined the placement of each village" to be sure that these villages have defensive patterns from militarily aspect.
It is not hard to guess that the implementation of these arbitrary policies had caused such complex and serious crisis in the Palestinian Arab masses.
confiscation and seizure of Arab lands on of different ways and pretext made the landless farmers to move to cities under the pressure of poverty and unemployment and the head of emergency, but also in cities with stagnant of manufacturing sector and a serious Jewish refusal to give work to these poor farmers, day to day the ranks of the unemployed increased.
It is also not excluded that in the meantime Arab liberals and master of thought and opinion and literature lovers were not silent and indifferent in the face of these plots and tried to defend the rights of their oppressed nation by any means to protect themselves. Even many villagers made the Ottoman sultan and governor in Beirut to hear the sound of their petition and protests over the seizure of lands and in their telegraph to the Palestinian daily, they said:
We prefer to die in defense of our people and our properties rather than migrating to nowhere and passing away of hunger.
The same newspaper suggested in one of its issues that a Palestinian national company be formed with the help of a group of rich Palestinians to buy non-arable lands and put the government under pressure to ban the sale of Arab lands to Jews. The press at the end of the article invited Palestinians to unity and cooperation in order to defend their country.
In 1911, Najib Nassar released a book titled: Zionism, history, purpose and its importance and said that Zionism has a racial base and national and political goals. Following him, Arab journalists like Easa Easa, Palestinian newspaper editor, and Mohammed Ezzat Darwaza, famous Palestinian political author, sounded the alarm of Zionism.
In 1913, the people of Nablus started the massive protests against the practice of selling lands to Jews by government and some fiery speeches were delivered. Carmel newspaper’s invitation to organize the fight paved the way for the emergence of a population called "population of struggle with Zionism". This population, whose center was in Nablus, had other branches in other cities and invited people to protests and transmitted remonstrant telegrams to the authorities.
In 1929, the conflict over access to the holy places of Jerusalem led the Palestinian Arabs to carry out attacks against Jewish settlements that as a result 133 Jews were killed.
An English commission called “Shaw Commission”, which was sent to the region, reported that the factor of dissatisfaction is “the huge fear of Arabs of this issue that immigration of Jews and purchasing their lands might deprive Palestinians of working and earning money, and eventually they would become under the political domination of the Jews”.
in 1935 when immigration and land selling were off-limits, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti, collected about four hundred clergies, including imams, muftis, preachers and teachers and stated a decree in which the sale of lands to Jewish settlers was declared illegal and that the perpetrators would have been treated as heretics and burning their bodies in graves of Muslims was banned.
Following these steps, land sellers gradually saw themselves committing "treason", and it became such a slander that different categories of landowners told each other.
But alas that such actions and protests and Shouts could not carry out much work against the Zionist organization and their coherent and long-term hidden plans and sinister and violent policies of the Zionist British government!
Before the end of this discussion, it is necessary to consider the issue of land in Palestine from another angle, and take a short look at function and beliefs of Jews.
One of the features of the Jewish people during history has been avoiding laborious jobs and employment in lucrative works. Therefore the usury, exchanging, dealing gold, silver and jewelry, and in recent times, buying and selling antiques and banking have been desirable for these people. On the other side entrance to the field of agriculture which usually involves such suffering activities and relying on limited and late incomes, did not interest them. Specifically the agriculture makes farmers needy of water and land, and because this tribe was not sure about their future and those events which had made them immigrate for long time, were never tending to become dependent to lands. But after the birth of the Zionist movement and the beginning of widespread and systematic Jewish immigration to Palestine, suddenly the situation changed, and with a strong emphasis and continuous advertising of Zionist leaders, the attitudes and beliefs of the Jewish people changed about the land issue. This means that the effort to have hardship and depriving themselves of the pleasures of life became common in the Palestinian Territories’ uninvited guests.
integrated and serious focus of Jewish people on physical efforts on farmlands and even drainage and drying wetlands and transforming them into arable lands without waiting for a lot of interest, and only in order to create jobs for young people and creating enthusiasm and motivation among them, and in brief "making new Jewish people" was the most striking characteristic of the early settlers in Palestine.
They claimed that they have entered the lands to cleanse themselves of their past life and wanted to be relieved of their past rounder behavior and character during displacement era. That is why they started new activities and step on the fields of agriculture and industry and production. This action led to strong Jewish connection with the lands and nature in Palestine.
Thus they needed more lands to be out of the hands of Arab Muslims and keep them at disadvantage and exclusion.
Max Nordau said: We are like the British in India, and we are even more insistent than them, we will spend all our power to work in Palestine by domination and controlling, in the fields of culture and civilization. our mission is opening the future borders to Euphrates.
Rvpn doctor, expert in the field of agriculture and economy of the Jewish Agency, declared in 1930:
for us, lands are essential element so that we can root in Palestine.. According to this fact that actually arable lands exist no longer in Palestine, we must seize lands and their occupants, so that we can change the farmers who work on them; in other words, we would change both the owners and the tenants.
In later periods, after the establishment of the Zionist regime of Ghods, this regime tried to align occupation with the goals of the Torah in their schools, with special Zionist education of their children.
Professor Israel Shahak, Jewish professor of University of Jerusalem, wrote:
in Israel the Jewish primary school children are suggested that the lands of Palestine that are now as Jewish properties, are "buy-in" lands and lands that belong to non-Jews are as “non-buy-in" ones which are called the captured and occupied lands.
In the latter case, the former non-Jewish owners can be the best people, and current Jewish owners are the worst criminals. If the latter is Jewish trading would be as ”redemption of the land", but if the worst of the Jews delegate their property to the best "foreigners", the poor and pure and survived land would be caught in a curse and outer darkness. The logical result of this fantasy is expelling all non-Jews from the "redeemed lands".
while Jews were greedy and had interest and attachment to the lands, and by this belief that " there must be a link between man and earth”, developed their ownership and worked there, and at that time when the Jewish leaders were busy by making orange and grapes groves and wine production and moved behind the plow days and months, prominent Arab businessmen had no desire to be involved in agriculture, and they were satisfied only by renting their lands. That is because they saw that Jews took suffering to commute to the village, which Arabs used to do it, so they stopped working!
Thus, the Palestinian territories were in the lives of these greedy foreigners.
It was while they were trying to choose their lands in remote areas and uninhabitable deserts, mainly in the border areas. Even if the natural conditions for agriculture were difficult in those areas and were uneconomic, they were only seeking for lands and needed water to revive them that sometimes the price of one cubic meter of them were several times more expensive than other Palestinian areas, but at the same time they showed their strength and tried to strengthen their foothold there.
Yael Dayan, daughter of Moshe Dayan (former defense minister of Israel), in a story titled "Blessed upon fearful ones", writes to her daughter, Nimrod:
Take the soil, hold it, feel it and taste it, it is your only God…if you wanted to prayer for the sky, to bring excellence to us, do not say prayer, but tell the sky to pour rain on our lands. This is the matter which is important…if you wanted to entertain yourself and learn something, go and learn how to milk a cow.
With such prejudice and attitudes towards the importance of soil and lands, the average income of a Jew was about 141 sterling per year until 1948. On the other hand, whole minority Jews’ production was 81 million and the value of Arab majority’s output was estimated to be 26 million!