Summary
The colonial master-strategist whose incisive pragmatism, in Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics, informed the designs of central Zionist planners in Mandate Palestine, including David Ben-Gurion and Joseph Weitz, and whose admiration for Bismarck’s East Prussian colonisation scheme helped inspire the Conquest of Labour (Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics, PDF p.13, p.19 / printed p.145, p.151).
Details
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Ruppin termed the separation of the two economies in Palestine “economic segregation” (PDF p.15 / printed p.147, note 42, citing Simha Flapan).
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The World Zionist Organization took up the Conquest of Labour inspired in large part by Ruppin’s admiration for Bismarck’s scheme in East Prussia, under which the government bought up failed Junker estates and broke them into allotments for subsidised sale to exclusively German smallholders to rid the region of Poles (PDF p.19 / printed p.151).
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Under a plan of Ruppin’s, Zionists bought up land before there were enough Jewish immigrants to cultivate it, expelling the fellaheen and keeping the land in reserve unused until Jewish tenants became available — a plan Mandate assistant treasurer Michel Abcarius termed “a vile use to which money can be put” (PDF p.24 / printed p.156, note 78).
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The land for the Jewish National Fund was in strict terms purchased by Zionist land-purchasing agencies, principally Ruppin’s Palestine Land Development Company (note 72, PDF p.37 / printed p.169).
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Ruppin’s The Agricultural Colonisation of the Zionist Organisation in Palestine (1926) is cited for the JNF’s initial targeting of absentee landowners (note 73), and his testimony to the Shaw Commission that 90% of vendors were absentees is quoted in note 69 (Shaw Commission report, p.114).
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In Shtetl Colonialism: First and Last Impressions of Indigeneity by Colonised Colonisers, Ruppin conceived the idea of building a Madafa, the traditional guest tent, hall or room, for settling with local notables the final transition of land from absentee landlords to Zionist hands, the notables having to be convinced to expel the tenants so as to allow actual Zionist settlement of the purchased land; cleansing the farmers and tenants was done first through meeting in the Zionist Madafa, then by force of eviction in Mandatory times (PDF p.14 / printed p.52, notes 30-31 to Alexander Zaid).
Related pages
Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics, Conquest of Labour, Conquest of Economics, Jewish National Fund, Gershon Shafir