from PLOUGHING SAND: British Rule in Palestine 1917-1948 - Naomi Shepherd
110 The LAW FACTORY
The Zionist Organization, which monitored the character and views of each successive High Commissioner through its contacts in London, reported in early 1928 that Chancellor, though 'totally ignorant on Palestine', believed that the Western Wall should come under Jewish control, and wondered 'why no great Jewish philanthropist had not bought it yet'.83 The Jews also hoped that since Chancellor had shown an educated interest, following his Rhodesian experience, in farming matters, he would approve their colonizing efforts. Later that year, after briefing Chancellor on Jewish development work in the north of the country, Frederick Kisch, the head of the Jewish Agency Political Department, noted that Chancellor had read the reports of Campbell and others on the new settlements, and was disappointed that 'more effective use was not made of Jewish investments'. Chancellor had enquired about the Huleh region, the swampy area some were recommending be drained for cultivation, asking 'whether meanwhile we [the Zionists] should not be quietly buying land in the neighbourhood, a remark which was characteristic of the general tone of his observations'.84
But by the end of the following year Chancellor had become convinced that it was necessary to restrict Jewish land purchase drastically, or even ban it altogether. He wanted an end to the collusion between Arabs and Jews in the sale of land, and he was worried about the effect of dispossession of fellahin on the social structure of the country. He became deeply involved in the Wadi Hawarith case, an important legal battle over the displacement of Arab tenants. And while this continued, the first serious outbreaks of Arab violence against Jews in eight years belied all Plumer's optimism.
In April 1929, the chief Zionist land-buying organization, the Jewish National Fund, bought a large area of land at Wadi Hawarith, between Haifa and Tel Aviv on the coastal plain. The vendors were members of a Palestinian Arab family some of whom lived in Jaffa. As often happened, they did not want their identity known, nor the price they were paid, so the land was sold at public auction; the sum the family received was more than three times that publicly announced. The JNF had also paid compensation to the 1,200 farmers, agricultural workers and shepherds - Bedouin and fellahin - and village officials nearby, in order to prevent trouble when it took possession. The Arabs were given notice to quit the land within a year. Though the administration challenged the validity of the sale, successive court judgments pronounced it legal, and ordered the eviction of the Wadi Hawarith Arabs, who also failed to qualify for tenancy privileges under the first Protection of Cultivators Ordinance (which had initially been introduced as a response to this very case). Chancellor did all he could to prevent their displacement. He had one portion of the area classed as state land; and through the Jewish Agency, the JNF was persuaded by Chancellor on three occasions to lease part of the land for an interim period to the administration - which then handed it over to the fellahin. Alternative land was offered the Wadi Hawarith Arabs in the Jordan valley, with transportation, fodder and plots planted in advance on irrigable land. All this was turned down. By intervening in the case, therefore, the High Commissioner himself had become involved in attempts to manipulate or circumvent the laws he himself had promoted, as well as taking on a paternalistic, rather than a legal, role.85
Chancellor was now convinced that the only way to protect the tenant population on land sold to the Jews was to stop such sales completely. In putting forward a proposed Transfer of Agricultural Land Bill, he wanted to prevent the sale of 'Arab land' to 'non-Arab', unless sanctioned by the High Commissioner himself; he made it clear that he would not approve such transfers." He also invoked legislation restricting the sale of native land both in the Mandate for Tanganyika and in the Federated Malay States, and argued that it was the the government's duty in Palestine, too, to protect the farming population. But the Attorney-General, Norman Bentwich, opposed the Bill, pointing out that Chancellor's proposals contradicted the terms of the Mandate and its obligations to the Jews. He argued that much land which could be farmed was still uncultivated, and that the main problem was not Arab farmers but the grazing traditions of Bedouin tribesmen, which he thought could be dealt with in separate legislation. Tanganyika, as a Mandate, was no parallel, he suggested, and distinguishing between 'Arabs' and 'non-Arabs' was racial discrimination.
This was not simply a difference of opinion between a High Commissioner and his chief legal adviser - or even a hostile front against Bentwich, since the Solicitor-General, Drayton, backed Chancellor's views and others in the Chief Secretary's office agreed with the Attorney-General. It was the worst clash between any High Commissioner and Jewish Mandatory official. Bentwich's professional views were only, in Chancellor's eyes, a confirmation of his belief that no Jew really had British interests at heart. Chancellor accordingly told Bentwich that his Jewishness (which, for Plumer, had seemed a political advantage: 'invaluable as a Jew') disqualified him from his post quite apart from his avowed Zionism. Bentwich protested, to no avail, that fellow Jews held high office in the Empire and that other non-Jewish officials had Zionist sympathies. The Colonial Office backed Chancellor. Bentwich was put on leave with pay, and then detained in London under the pretext of 'giving temporary assistance to the Legal Department of the Colonial Office'. He was then offered the post of Chief Justice in Cyprus, which he refused. Fortunately for the Colonial Office, Bentwich was offered a teaching post at the Hebrew University. But announcement of the post was held up by the opposition of a member of the University Board, who cited the Attorney-General's pro-Arab ruling in the Beisan lands case. When the administration urged haste, 'to give the appointment of a new Attorney-General a perfectly natural appearance', the President of the University, Judah Magnes, told Chancellor that, although favourable to Bentwich, they 'felt disinclined to let themselves be utilised merely as a means of extricating HMG from the difficulty'. After many months, the appointment was finally approved, though when Bentwich first appeared on the podium to speak on international law and peace there was uproar, with students shouting that he should 'go and teach peace to the Mufti'.v Chancellor had wanted his term in Palestine to crown his colonial career - he was soon due for retirement. Everything conspired to frustrate him. On his first home leave, Palestine was shaken by the first 113 THE LAW FACTORY serious outbreaks of violence in a decade. A quarrel over Jewish rights at the Wailing Wall in the autumn of 1928 led to Arab rioting and murders of Jews and - in restoring order - the killing of Arabs by British police and soldiers. The Palestine garrison which, 'squeezed' by the Treasury, Plumer had incautiously reduced, had to be hastily reinforced. The incident was exploited by the Mufti during a year of incitement, which culminated, in August 1929, in more bloodshed: the massacre of entire families within the Jewish community in Hebron and Safed by Arab rioters. Two Commissions of Enquiry were sent out over the period from London, and both re-examined the whole question of Arab Jewish relations under British rule. While the first Commission recommended a complete overhaul of policy, on land as on other questions, the second gave a low estimate of the cultivable area of the country and declared that, apart from the existing Jewish land reserves, there was 'with the present methods of Arab cultivation no margin of land available for agricultural settlement by new immigrants'.88
Both Commissions had been deeply influenced by Chancellor's now strongly held views against the transfer of land. Lord Passfield, the Colonial Secretary, issued a White Paper in October 193o incorporating his recommendations. For several months it appeared that land sales to the Jews were to be officially halted, and that Chancellor had succeeded in reversing one of the most important provisions of the Balfour Declaration. But the British government, under pressure from the Jewish Agency, was not yet prepared for such a radical change of policy. A letter from the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, to Weizmann in February 1931 modified the White Paper in such a way as to forestall any ban on land transfers, instead returning to the principle of compensation, in either land or money, for those dispossessed (the Arabs dubbed this the Black Letter). Additional provisions helped those who (like the Bedouin in Wadi Hawarith) had grazed or watered animals, or cut wood or reeds on lands up for sale, for five years, and limited the landlords' ability to raise rent without government sanction. A new Department of Development was set up to examine the claims of 'landless cultivators' and to resettle them. But the category of the 'landless' was highly restrictive: it excluded those who had found employment elsewhere and those who had sold of their own free will, and included other conditions which disqualified most of the applicants. Fewer than seven hundred out of more than three thousand applicants were accepted as eligible for resettlement. The disappointment of many fellahin who had believed that they would be restored to their previous lands only increased their motivation to circumvent the laws.
The Mandate officials charged with implementing the land laws knew the extent of the fellahin's debts. Some put forward proposals to alleviate their situation, from promoting co-operative societies (which, though legalized in 1920, had never been introduced among the fellahin) to a scaling down of interest on debts by the courts. Most of the suggestions were rejected out of hand. Morris Bailey, the Assistant District Commissioner for Haifa, who had been in Palestine from the days of the military government, criticized the government in 1933 for not having actively encouraged co-operatives ten years earlier. He suggested that the government should repay creditors by bonds or notes at a low rate, taking over the fellahin debts. His suggestions were unconditionally rejected by the Treasury, whose spokesmen argued that the ordinances for the protection of tenants were sufficient. 'Any proposal to repudiate debts even though the fellah is virtually bankrupt without giving creditors the ordinary right of liquidation is . . . commercially immoral', and taking responsibility for the collection of debts was 'out of the question'.89 In the early days of the Mandate a few longterm loans had been made and farmers had mortgaged their property to the government as security. When the time came to sell, however, the debts sometimes exceeded the value of the land." Another proposal in the early thirties was to advance loans to Arab landlords who agreed to employ landless farmers, but few landlords co-operated and the suggestion was dropped?'
The Commissions set up in the mid-1930s to adjudicate between tenants and owners gave Lewis Andrews, of the Development Department, hope that 'the public was beginning to realize the advantage' of the revised ordinances. The new High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, instructed District Officers to inform the villagers of their rights as soon as they heard of an impending sale. But many thought the 'new law' gave them the right to any land they could plough. Sometimes squatters claimed tenancy rights, in order to force the Jewish owners to bribe them to move on. On one occasion a Jewish company gave Andrews a verbal assurance that they would not tempt Arab tenants to evacuate land with advance compensation. Andrews lambasted those 'foolish tenants' who renounced their rights and had to be protected against themselves. 'It is impossible to legislate for fools, and cases of foolish tenants accepting cash in lieu of a subsistence area are bound to occur,' he noted.92 His views were shared by Keith-Roach, who recalled:
Most British officials thought that the Arabs had had a raw deal, but did not realize that the Arabs' future lay largely in the Arabs' own hands. They sympathized with the peasant who was quite content to sit under the shadow of his single tree and watch the Jews plant scores of new ones on land that had formerly belonged to Arabs."
By the mid-thirties sympathy for the fellahin in the administration was waning. In 1935 the Commissioner of Lands, Albert Abramson, circulated all district officials, both Commissioners and District Officers, proposing that various 'village improvement schemes' encouraged and sometimes financed by Wauchope should also comprise mutual help schemes and grants which, together with land settlement and an Irrigation Ordinance now on the books, would reduce the fellahin's debts." The responses, particularly those of the Arab District Officers, were critical of the fellahin. Nicola Saba, District Officer for the Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jericho sub-districts in the south of the country, pointed out that fruit trees were being supplied at low rates and rural taxes had been reduced:
Experience has shown that fellah in the hills has his eyes wide open to see where he can obtain a loan ... once he gets it he lavishly spends it on unproductive schemes ... he will never be able to repay ... without pressure. The curse of the fellah is his laziness in changing from extensive to intensive cultivation.
Saba said each fellah had three months in the year to work on extra terracing but was not doing so: 'I do not believe in enforcing culture on any person.' Abdallah Kardus also thought that the seasonal pattern of the fellahin's life should change, and that instead of importing poultry, eggs and meat, the administration should encourage the farmers to produce them. The Jerusalem District Commissioner J. E. E Campbell, summing up all the responses, said that there was agreement that the fellahin should find work during the three winter months, and that giving or lending them money encouraged idleness: `The fellah has come to think that every loan is a government grant.'"
All this did nothing, of course, to improve the condition of the land itself. Landlords were cautious about leasing and releasing land, in many places preferring to leave the land fallow rather than to run the risk of farmers claiming tenancy rights. They tended to let lands for less than a year and thus prevented the farmers cultivating winter crops, so that while wasteland was suddenly ploughed to claim rights, other, fertile land lay uncultivated in order to prevent claims from being put forward. Everyone went to court. The Royal (Peel) Commission of 1937 found that:
The work [of land settlement] is impeded by a large number of fictitious and frivolous claims all of which have to be duly recorded, examined and decided. This procedure inevitably provokes and multiplies litigation, especially in a country where there has been a sudden and abnormal increase in land values. Whereas at first disputed claims were about io per cent of the total submitted to Settlement Officers, there is now reported 'a growing tendency to dispute every claim where there is a shadow of a case, and often where there is not' 96
In 1935 a fatwa was issued, signed by Haj Amin el Husseini and five other muftis, forbidding land sales to the Jews. Those who did so were branded as traitors, their burial in Muslim cemeteries prohibited, and they were to be exiled from Muslim society. The Mufti toured the country invoking the fatwa, the Arab press attacked the brokers, and a fund was set up by the Arab Executive to buy land earmarked for sale - though it had little success? Yet sales of land went on, not all of them by impoverished farmers. Lewis Andrews named in his reports members of both the Arab Executive and the Supreme Muslim Council who had been involved, as agents or sellers, in the commerce." The Arab Revolt of 1936, an uprising against the British and the Jews alike, eventually caused such destruction and chaos throughout the countryside that it negated any progress towards agricultural reform that had been made. The question of the 'lot viable' for the landless was put aside and land settlement came to a halt in many areas of the country, as half the district courts were closed. Agricultural and horticultural stations, including an experimental fruit station paid for by Wauchope, were attacked by Arab rebels. The sole Arab agricultural college in Palestine was closed, and its entire herd of 33 cattle looted. Andrews himself was a target of rebel anger: shot dead on his way to church in Nazareth in 1937. His murder was the trigger for the deportation of much of the Arab leadership of Palestine, and the flight of the Mufti.
Yet even during the Revolt, sales went on, even if in secrecy. The Jewish National Fund ceased registering purchases, but it quietly acquired, between 1936 and 1940, most of its property in the Galilee and over half of that purchased in the Jordan valley. Moreover, where formerly land was bought chiefly in areas where Arab settlement was sparse, it was now bought for strategic reasons, staking a claim to Jewish control over the whole of western Palestine.99
Notes:
83. Unsigned report on meeting with Chancellor, 15 October 19z8 (CZA S 25/29).
84. Frederick Kisch, transcript of interview with Chancellor, 19 December 1928 (CZA S 25/15).
85. The Wadi Harawith case is described in detail in Stein, The Land Question, pp. 76-9.
86. Dispatch of 29 March 193o to Secretary of State for Colonies (RHL, Chancellor Papers, Box XIV).
87. 'Secret and Confidential Dispatches to Lord Passfield, 193o-31' (RHL, Chancellor Papers, Box XIII, file 3).
88. Chancellor to Passfield, 17 January 193o (PRO CO 733/183/77050).
89. Morris Bailey, Assistant District Commissioner, Haifa, 'The Indebtedness of the Arab Cultivator', in 'Indebtedness of Fellahin, 1933-6' (ISA RG3 AGro/I9 M854); Treasury to Chief Secretary (ibid.).
90. Treasury to Attorney-General, 25 September 1928; Mills, Assistant Chief Secretary, to District Commissioner, Northern District, 8 October 1928 (ISA RG3 AG318 M749: 'Agricultural Loans').
91. Lewis Andrews to Chief Secretary, 16 September 1933 (PRO CO 733/1724).
92. Andrews, in Report of February 1934; see n.79.
93. Keith-Roach, Pasha in Jerusalem, p. 150.
94. Abramson, memorandum to District Officials, April 1935 (ISA RG3 AGro/19 M854: 'Indebtedness of Fellahin').
95. Saba to Abramson, 8 April 1935; Kardus to Abramson, 17 April 1935 (ISA RG3 AGro/r9); J. E. F. Campbell, memorandum, 19 April 1935 (ISA RG3 AG2o/r9).
96. Palestine Royal Commission Report, July 1937 (Cmd. 5479).
97. Details of the fatwa from Kupferschmidt, The Supreme Muslim Council, p. 145, n.r28.
98. Lewis Andrews to Chief Secretary, 24 March 1933 (PRO CO 733/17249), in dispatch to Secretary of State for Colonies.
99. Porath, `The Land Problem', in Ben Dor (ed.), The Palestinians, p. 507. roo. Conversation between J. F. Stubbs, of the Land Office, and Bernard Joseph, of the Jewish Agency, 16 June 1939 (CZA S 2.5/10579).