Despite the growth in their population, the Arabs continued to assert they were being displaced. The truth is that from the beginning of World War I, part of "Palestine's" land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut. About 80 percent of the "Palestinian" Arabs were debt-ridden peasants, semi-nomads and Bedouins.1

Jews actually went out of their way to avoid purchasing land in areas where Arabs might be displaced. They sought land that was largely uncultivated, swampy, cheap and, most important, without tenants. In 1920, Labor Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion expressed his concern about the Arab fellahin, whom he viewed as "the most important asset of the native population." Ben-Gurion said "under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by them." He advocated helping liberate them from their oppressors. "Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement," Ben-Gurion added, "should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price."2

It was only after the Jews had bought all of the available uncultivated land that they began to purchase cultivated land. Many Arabs were willing to sell because of the migration to coastal towns and because they needed money to invest in the citrus industry.3

When John Hope Simpson arrived in "Palestine" in May 1930, he observed: "They [Jews] paid high prices for the land, and in addition they paid to certain of the occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay."4

In 1931, Lewis French conducted a survey of landlessness and eventually offered new plots to any Arabs who had been "dispossessed." British officials received more than 3,000 applications, of which 80 percent were ruled invalid by the Government's legal adviser because the applicants were not landless Arabs. This left only about 600 landless Arabs, 100 of whom accepted the Government land offer.5

In April 1936, a new outbreak of Arab attacks on Jews was instigated by a Syrian guerrilla named Fawzi al­Qawukji, the commander of the Arab Liberation Army. By November, when the British finally sent a new commission headed by Lord Peel to investigate, 89 Jews had been killed and more than 300 wounded.6

The Peel Commission's report found that Arab complaints about Jewish land acquisition were baseless. It pointed out that "much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when it was purchased....there was at the time of the earlier sales little evidence that the owners possessed either the resources or training needed to develop the land."7 Moreover, the Commission found the shortage was "due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population." The report concluded that the presence of Jews in "Palestine", along with the work of the British Administration, had resulted in higher wages, an improved standard of living and ample employment opportunities.8

In his memoirs, Transjordan's King Abdullah wrote:

    It is made quite clear to all, both by the map drawn up by the Simpson Commission and by another compiled by the Peel Commission, that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping (emphasis in the original).9

Even at the height of the Arab revolt in 1938, the British High Commissioner to "Palestine" believed the Arab landowners were complaining about sales to Jews to drive up prices for lands they wished to sell. Many Arab landowners had been so terrorized by Arab rebels they decided to leave "Palestine" and sell their property to the Jews.10

The Jews were paying exorbitant prices to wealthy landowners for small tracts of arid land. "In 1944, Jews paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in "Palestine", mostly for arid or semiarid land; in the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was selling for about $110 per acre."11

By 1947, Jewish holdings in "Palestine" amounted to about 463,000 acres. Approximately 45,000 of these acres were acquired from the Mandatory Government; 30,000 were bought from various churches and 387,500 were purchased from Arabs. Analyses of land purchases from 1880 to 1948 show that 73 percent of Jewish plots were purchased from large landowners, not poor fellahin.12 Those who sold land included the mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem and Jaffa. As'ad el­Shuqeiri, a Muslim religious scholar and father of PLO chairman Ahmed Shuqeiri, took Jewish money for his land. Even King Abdullah leased land to the Jews. In fact, many leaders of the Arab nationalist movement, including members of the Muslim Supreme Council, sold land to Jews.13

1.Moshe Aumann, Land Ownership in Palestine 1880-1948, (Jerusalem: Academic Committee on the Middle East, 1976), p. 5.
2.Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War, (London: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 32.
3.Porath, pp. 80, 84.
4.Hope Simpson Report, p. 51.
5.Avneri, pp. 149-158; Cohen, p. 37; based on the Report on Agricultural Development and Land Settlement in Palestine by Lewis French, (December 1931, Supplementary; Report, April 1932) and material submitted to the Palestine Royal Commission.
6.Netanel Lorch, One Long War, (Jerusalem: Keter, 1976), p. 27; Sachar, p. 201.
7.Palestine Royal Commission Report (1937), p. 242.
8.Palestine Royal Commission (1937), pp. 241-242.
9.King Abdallah, My Memoirs Completed, (London, Longman Group, Ltd., 1978), pp. 88-89.
10.Porath (77), pp. 86-87.
11.Aumann, p. 13.
12.Abraham Granott, The Land System in Palestine, (London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1952), p. 278.
13.Avneri, pp. 179-180, 224-225, 232-234; Porath (77), pp. 72-73.