Summary
Unpartitioned land in customary joint ownership, in Simpson’s glossary phrase: in a Mesha’a village the whole village property is held in common and each shareholder owns only a fractional, undivided share, redistributed in practice every two years — a system Simpson and the Committee on the Economic Condition of Agriculturists treat as a central obstacle to agricultural development (Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, lines 289-359, 1025-1065).
Details
- Shares are expressed as a fedan, a karat (1/24th of the whole) or a sehem, none representing a defined plot (lines 1025-1035).
- Partition requires either unanimous agreement accepted by the Courts or a Court action whose preliminary costs — clearing titles often still in a dead father’s or grandfather’s name, 3 per cent registration, a surveyor’s map and Court fees — are exceedingly heavy for the applicant (lines 1035-1045).
- A 1923 return showed 56 per cent of villages Mesha’a and 44 per cent Mafruz (divided); the 1930 return showed 46 per cent Mesha’a and 54 per cent Mafruz, most of the private partitions not final (lines 1050-1055).
- The Committee on the Economic Condition of Agriculturists called Mesha’a “perhaps the greatest obstacle to agricultural progress in Palestine” (lines 1050-1060).
- A 1923 Government Commission proposed enforced partition powers, local committees and fee reductions; Simpson records that nothing appears to have been done, and recommends special staff or powers for Area and District Officers instead of committees, with appeals kept out of the civil courts as far as possible (lines 1055-1070).
Related pages
Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, Waqf, Hamula