Summary
Assistant District Commissioner of Beersheba in 1943 whose testimony, quoted at length by The Ongoing Judaisation of the Naqab and the Struggle for Recognising the Indigenous Rights of the Arab Bedouin People from an interview in Somerset in August 2008, is that the British had no land-registration system in Beersheba and accepted traditional collective Bedouin ownership, neither opposing it nor forcing registration (The Ongoing Judaisation of the Naqab and the Struggle for Recognising the Indigenous Rights of the Arab Bedouin People, PDF p.15-16 / printed p.95-96).
Details
- Quoted: “We did not oppose Bedouin land ownership, nor did we force them to register their land.” The city of Beersheba’s land itself belonged to a very well-known Bedouin tribe; some Bedouin did pay tax, and the British preferred for economic reasons not to impose high taxes (PDF p.16, note 59).
- His evidence is set against the Israeli claim that Bedouin land was Mawat because it was neither registered nor cultivated (PDF p.15-16).
Related pages
The Ongoing Judaisation of the Naqab and the Struggle for Recognising the Indigenous Rights of the Arab Bedouin People, Beersheba, Mawat, Naqab