CHAPTER THREE
THE OWNERSHIP OF CAPITAL IN PALESTINE

The Government of Palestine did not inventory the national wealth in Palestine. However, the Department of Statistics prepared certain estimates of the shares of Arabs and Jews in the national wealth of the country. These estimates did not include figures for urban building and lands or village buildings. The estimates prepared for the value of land, industrial establishments, livestock and commodity stocks are arbitrary, based on values existing before World War 11. Therefore, these estimates can give only a general idea and do not reflect exact values.

In A Survey of Palestine, Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the Palestine Government attempted to provide general estimates. The Government stated:

Palestine must be numbered among those countries which have not attempted to compile estimates of the national wealth. Nevertheless, certain basic information is available and presented below .... in the form of a series of tables in which the main categories of capital are enumerated and the shares of Jews, Arabs and others are indicated .... The estimates do not include any figures for urban land buildings and improvements, nor for public fixed assets.(1)

The Survey of Palestine gives the value of rural lands but states: "These values, although based on values actually ruling pre-war, are completely arbitrary and have been designed to reflect the share of the two groups of the population rather than the aggregate value of the land."(2)

LAND OWNERSHIP IN PALESTINE

The share of Arabs and Jews in land ownership in Palestine was, as of the 1st April, 1943, 24,670,455 dunums owned by Arabs and 1,514,247 dunums owned by Jews. (A dunum is 1,000 square meters. Four dunums equal one acre.) The following table shows the share of Jews and Arabs (including other non-Jews) in the ownership of land in Palestine as at 1 st April, 1943.(3)

Subcommittee 2 of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestine Question stated in its report to the United Nations General Assembly the following:

Closely connected with the distribution of population is the factor of land ownership in the proposed Jewish State. The bulk of the land in the Arab State, as well as in the proposed Jewish State, is owned and possessed by Arabs. This is clear from the following statistics furnished to the Sub-Committee by the United Kingdom representative, showing the respective percentages of Arab and Jewish ownership of land in the various sub-districts of Palestine.(4)

Note: The balance represents waste lands and lands under public ownership, consisting mainly of grazing lands attached to villages.

It will be seen that there is not a single sub-district in which the percentage of Jewish land ownership exceeds 39 percent, and that in nine of the sixteen sub-districts the percentage of Jewish ownership is less than 5 percent.(5)

The Survey of Palestine contained information about the years and number of dunums purchased by Jews from 1920-1945 as follows:(6)

AREAS PURCHASED BY JEWS, 1920-45

The Survey of Palestine also provides details of the ownership by Arabs and Jews of the citrus groves. The Arabs owned 127,377 dunums of citrus groves. The Jews owned 120.897.(7)

CITRUS GROVES

Ownership of lands by Jews in the various districts of Palestine was as follows:(8)

LAND IN JEWISH POSSESSION, BY DISTRICTS (IN 1000 DUNUMS)

Figures as at the end of 1944, based on a research work by Messrs. Weitz and Lifshitz on Jewish land in Palestine. Land in Jewish possession at the end of 1945 amounted to 1,778,000 dunums, thereof 1,603,000 dunums by purchase. Non-rural areas comprise towns, suburbs, built on areas in villages and industrial localities (Dead Sea Works, etc.).

The Jewish National Fund made a study of Jewish villages in Israel in 1949 and stated:(9)

Of the entire area of the State of Israel only about 300,000- 400,000 dunams - apart from the desolate rocky area of the southern Negev, at present quite unfit for cultivation - are State Domain which the Israel Government took over from the Mandatory regime. The J.N.F. and private Jewish owners possess under two million dunams. Almost all the rest belongs at law to Arab owners, many of whom have left the country. The fate of these Arabs will be settled when the terms of the peace treaties between Israel and her Arab neighbours are finally drawn up. The J.N.F., however, cannot wait until then to obtain the land it requires for its pressing needs. It is, therefore, acquiring part of the land abandoned by the Arab owners, through the Government of Israel, the sovereign authority in Israel.

Whatever the ultimate fate of the Arabs concerned, it is manifest that their legal right to their land and property in Israel, or to the monetary value of them, will not be waived, nor do the Jews wish to ignore them. Legal conquest of territory is a powerful factor in determining the frontiers and the sovereignty of a state. But conquest by force of arms cannot, in law or in ethics, abrogate the rights of the legal owner to his personal property. The J.N.F., therefore, will pay for the lands it takes over, at a fixed and fair price. The Government will receive the money and in due time will make compensation to the Arabs.

Under this arrangement the J.N.F. will acquire this year one million dunams of land for settlement. The forces of history have given the J.N.F. the opportunity - and the necessity - of acquiring in one year as much land as it acquired in the long period of 47 years of unremitting effort. That is an indication of the practical change which has come about as a result of Israel's independence.

Within the first 10 months of the establishment of Israel 51 new villages have been established on J.N.F. land. In all, 200 new villages will arise on the new area of one million dunams. Most of them will be in strategic areas. Besides providing the land, the J.N.F. is contributing 37 1/2% of the initial cost of settlement. These do not exhaust the tasks that face the J.N.F. It is also reclaiming the land, furthering the development of the country's water resources, and, wherever necessary, afforesting areas unfit for cultivation. In and around the cities it must provide land for housing, a vital necessity for the rapidly growing population. These, too, are enormous tasks, and if we do no more than mention them here, it is only because they do not fall directly within the scope of this review.

AREA OF J.N.F. LAND IN PALESTINE (1947-48)

BUILDINGS AND APARTMENTS

There were in Palestine in 1948 four mixed cities in which Arabs and Jews lived together, namely Jerusalem, Haifa, Safad and Tiberias. There were also eight Arab cities and large towns and 833 Arab small towns and villages. There were six Jewish cities or towns, 21 Jewish urban settlements and 266 Jewish rural settlements. Jewish statistics also showed that in 1947 there were 919 Arab towns and villages and 293 Jewish towns and villages.(19) Ninety percent of the Arabs who were living in small towns and cities resided in individual houses built of stone. Ten percent of the Arab city dwellers were living in apartment houses in buildings owned by Arab landlords. The Arabs in villages were living in individual houses built of stone. 80% of these village houses were modem houses and 20% were of inferior quality. The Government of Palestine conducted a census in 1931 of the population of Palestine in every town and village and the number of houses. As this was the last census, the Govemment gave estimates of the increase of the Arab and Jewish population. The increase of the Arab population was estimated at 30.71 per 1,000. On the basis of this estimate, we computerized the estimates in 1948 and the result was that the Arab population in Palestine in 1948 was 1,440,274 and the number of Arab houses or apartments was 360,068.

OWNERSHIP IN INDUSTRY

The Survey of Palestine dealt with the ownership of industry in Palestine. There were 1,558 Arab industrial establishments and 1,907 Jewish establishments. The details were as follows:

OWNERSHIP OF INDUSTRY IN PALESTINE

(As found at the census of industry, 1943)(11)

MOTOR VEHICLES AND ESTIMATED VALUE

The Survey of Palestine published the number of vehicles owned by Arabs and Jews and their value in 1945 as follows:(12)

ESTIMATED NUMBER AND VALUE OF LIVESTOCK UNDER ARAB AND JEWISH OWNERSHIP(13)

VALUATION OF RURAL LAND UNDER ARAB AND JEWISH OWNERSHIP IN 1943(14)

The values quoted are pre-war values (i.e., before 1939):

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

1. A Survey of Palestine Prepared in December I945 and January 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (Jerusalem: Palestine Government Printer, 1946), volume 2,
p. 563.
2. Ibid., p. 563.
3. Ibid., p. 566.
4. Official Records of the Second Session of the General Assembly Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestine Question, Summary Records of Meetings, 25 September-25 November, 1947, pp. 292-
293.
5. Ibid., pp. 292-293.
6. Survey of Palestine, volume 1, p. 244.
7. Supplement to Survey of Palestine, Notes Compiled for the Information of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (Jerusalem: Palestine Government Printer, 1947), p. 37.
8. Statistical Handbook of Jewish Palestine (Jerusalem: Department of Statistics of the Jewish Agency, 1947), p. 129.
9. Jewish Villages in Israel, Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth Leisrael), Head Office, Jerusalem, 1949, pp. xxi-xxii.
10. Statistical Handbook of Jewish Palestine, pp. 36-40.
11. Survey of Palestine, volume 2, p. 567.
12. Ibid., p. 568.
13. Ibid.,
14. Ibid., p. 567.