Mohsen Mohammad Saleh on pre-1948 land purchases by Jewish immigrants into Palestine

By the end of the Ottoman State in 1918, the Jews had acquired about 420 thousand dunams (or 1.5%) of the land of Palestine, which they bought mainly from Lebanese feudal landlords, most notably the families of Sursock, Tayyan, Tueni and Medawar, or from the Ottoman administration through public auction in which the lands of Palestinian peasants who are unable to pay their taxes are sold, or from some Palestinian landlords who belong to feudal families like the Ruk and Kassar families. These purchases covered 93% of the land the Jews acquired. In any case, the Zionist threat was not considered serious by the people of Palestine at that time, due to the small size of the Jewish settlement and population, and that the establishment of a Zionist entity under a Muslim state (the Ottoman State) was practically impossible.

When Palestine came under British occupation 1917–1948, it was clear that it came to implement the Zionist project, and establish a national home for the Jews in Palestine. It invested all the powers of colonial rule and oppression to impose this reality. The Palestinian national movement resisted Jewish settlement with all its political, media and protest means, fought many uprisings and had many confrontations. The total land the Zionist Jews were able to seize during British occupation was about 1.2 million dunam or only 4.5% of Palestine, and this was despite the British global capabilities, huge capital, and under the direct support of the oppressive occupation force. 

But wait! Most of these lands were not actually bought from the people of Palestine! Objective facts indicate that most of this land was leaked to the Jews, either through British government grants of Palestine’s miri lands “state lands,” or through major non-Palestinian feudal landlords, who resided abroad and were practically and officially prohibited from entering this region (under British occupation) to invest in their land if they really wanted to. 

The British authorities granted about 300 thousand dunams of miri lands to the Jews without charge, and 200 thousand dunams for a nominal fee. The first British High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel (1920–1925), who was a Zionist Jewish, granted 175 thousand dunams of the most fertile lands of the state, on the coast between Haifa and Caesarea, to the Jews. He also gave them massive grants of other coastal lands, and in the Negev, and on the Dead Sea coast.

There were huge feudal properties for families who acquired these lands, particularly in 1869, when the Ottoman State was forced to sell miri lands to rich Lebanese families to provide some money for its treasury, and that was another aspect of the tragedy. The feudal landlords from outside Palestine sold a total of 625 thousand dunams; the Sursock family sold more than 200 thousand dunams of Marj Ibn ‘Amer lands to the Zionists, displacing 2,746 Arab families from 22 Palestinian villages, who have been cultivating these lands for hundreds of years. The tragedy was repeated when other Lebanese feudal landlords sold about 120 thousand dunams around Lake Hula, in northern Palestine, and two Lebanese families sold the Wadi al-Hawarith lands (32 thousand dunams), thus displacing 15 thousand Palestinians. During the period 1920–1936, the agricultural lands sold by absentee feudal landlords (of Lebanese and Syrian families) reached 55.5% of agricultural lands acquired by the Jews.

Despite the responsibility borne by the families who sold these lands, the blame is not entirely on them alone, for the British authorities prevented them from entering Palestine to exploit these lands, on the pretext that they were foreigners. That was after Palestine was separated from Syria and Lebanon according to the Sykes-Picot divisions between the British and French colonies.

As for the sum of the lands leaked into the hands of the Jews, which were sold by the Palestinian Arabs during the British occupation, it was about 260 thousand dunams (less than 1%) of the land of Palestine. The Zionist Jews acquired these lands because of the harsh conditions imposed by the British colonial government on the Palestinian peasants, and as a result of the British expropriation of Arab property for the benefit of the Jews, according to articles of the British Mandate for Palestine, which entitle the High Commissioner to this right. Some sales occurred because of the weakness of a number of Palestinians towards financial temptations, and this is not surprising, such cases are found in every time and place in any Arab or non-Arab country. These were few groups weakened by temptations, who were, in any case, a pariah group fought by the entire people of Palestine. Many of them were boycotted, liquidated and assassinated, especially during the Arab Revolt that swept Palestine during the 1936–1939 period.

Based on the above, the total of what the Jews obtained from the people of Palestine until 1948 does not exceed 1% of the land of Palestine. This happened within seventy years since the beginning of settlement and organized emigration to Palestine, and under harsh conditions. Evidently, it highlights on one hand the extent that the Jews suffered in stabilizing and making their project in Palestine succeed, and on the other hand, the extent of the determination of the Palestinians to stick to their land.

~ Dr. Mohsen Mohammad Saleh, "Did the Palestinians Sell Their Land? And leave it to the Jews?!," Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies & Consultations, May 22, 2020