Summary
Historian of the Mandate land question whose The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 (1984) and related studies supply much of the land-transfer machinery documented in Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics (Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics, notes 38, 41, 68-85).
Details
- Stein observed that Britain devoted an “overwhelming predominance” of Mandate administrative expenditure to strategic purposes, while only small amounts were made available to ameliorate the economic and social conditions of either the Arab or Jewish communities — quoted from “Legal Protection and Circumvention of Rights for Cultivators in Mandatory Palestine” (1980), p.234 (PDF p.14, note 38 / printed p.146).
- His formulation of the Mandate’s asymmetry, from The Land Question in Palestine (1984) p.213: the national home was “a statement of right”, the safeguards for the non-Jewish population “a statement of sufferance” (PDF p.15, note 41 / printed p.147).
- Wolfe follows Stein for the methods by which debts to Zionist purchasers were contrived to obtain court orders for sale, quoting his summary that “this entire process was pre-planned so that the Jewish National Fund would obtain the land, the prestige of the seller would be protected, the rights of cultivators would be summarily circumvented, and the seller would obtain a price for the land well above the price set by the court” (Land Question, p.72; PDF p.25, note 85 / printed p.157).
- Stein’s studies are also Wolfe’s sources for effendi willingness to sell (note 75), absentees’ responsiveness to cash (note 76), under-registration (note 81), collusive mortgage auctions (note 82), tenant-of-tenant eviction (note 83) and duress undertakings (note 84).
Related pages
Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics, Jewish National Fund, Walter Lehn, Shaw Commission