User:Bless sins/Palestine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article discusses the land ownership of Palestine prior to 1948. The total surface area of Palestine was approximately 26.3 million dunums, of which about one third was cultivable. Palestine was owned by thre predominant groups: the Arabs, the Jews and the mandatory government.

The Arabs, constituting no less then two thirds of Palestine's population, owned the vast majority of private property. According to one source Arabs owned about half of the land [1]. Other sources, however, provide considerably lower figures [2].

Jews, making up about a third of Palestine's population, privately and collectively owned 1,393,531 dunums in 1945 (Khalaf, 1991, pp. 26-27) and 1,850,000 dunums in 1947 (Avneri p. 224). This constituted about 20% of cultivable, and 7% of the total land of Palestine.

Public property or "crown lands" belonged to the government of Palestine. The amount of Palestine owned by the government is also disputed. One source puts the number as high as 70% of the total land [3].

Contents

[edit] Land Ownership by district

The following table shows the land ownership of Palestine by district:

Land ownership of Palestine by district as of 1945
District % Arab owned % Jewish owned % Public and other
Acre 87% 3% 10%
Beersheba 15% <1% 85%
Beisan 44% 34% 22%
Gaza 75% 4% 21%
Haifa 42% 35% 23%
Hebron 96% <1% 4%
Jaffa 46% 39% 14%
Jenin 84% <1% 16%
Nazareth 52% 28% 20%
Ramallah 99% <1% 1%
Ramle 77% 14% 9%
Safad 68% 18% 14%
Tiberias 51% 38% 11%
Tulkarm 78% 17% 5%
Data from the

Land Ownership of Palestine

[edit] Land ownership by type

The land owned privately and collectively by Arabs and Jews can be classified as urban, rural built-on, cultivable (farmed), and uncultivable. The following chart shows the ownership by Arabs and Jews in each of the categories.

Land ownership of Palestine (in dunums) as of April 1st, 1943
Category of land Arab ownership Jewish ownership Total Land
Urban 76,662 70,111 146,773
Rural built-on 36,851 42,330 79,181
Cereal (taxable) 5,503,183 814,102 6,317,285
Cereal (not taxable) 900,294 51,049 951,343
Plantation 1,079,788 95,514 1,175,302
Citrus 145,572 141,188 286,760
Banana 2,300 1,430 3,730
Total 7,744,650 1,215,724 8,940,374
The above does not include uncultivable lands owned by both parties. Data is from Survey of Palestine.[4]

[edit] Land Laws of Palestine

  • Ottoman Land Code of 1858
  • Land Transfer Ordinance of 1920
  • 1926 Correction of Land Registers Ordinance
  • Land Settlement Ordinance of 1928
  • Land Transfer Regulations of 1940


[edit] References

  1. ^  Shaw J.V.W., A Survey of Palestine : Prepared in December, 1945 and January, 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, Vol.1, Institute for Palestine Studies 1991, pp 566.

[edit] Additional Resources

A survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the information of the Anglo-American committee of inquiry, Printed by the Government Printer, [Jerusalem?], 1946

Supplement to Survey of Palestine, Notes Compiled for the Information of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, Palestine Government Printer, Jerusalem, 1947

Reprint of the Survey and Supplement by the Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington, D.C., 1991, 3 Volumes

Jewish Villages in Israel, Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth Leisrael), Head Office, Jerusalem, 1949

Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development - UK Government report, Cmd. 3686, 01/10/1930. [5]

Statistical Handbook of Jewish Palestine, Department of Statistics of the Jewish Agency, Jerusalem, 1947


[edit] See also

[edit] External Links


 This Middle Eastern history-related article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.