Arab squatters who were given grants of land by the Government in the Beisan area intend to notify the Government that they are unable to pay the taxes demanded, and would therefore like to return the land to the State, it is reported here to-day.
The grant of the Beisan lands to the Arab squatters has been much criticised by the Zionist Organisation and the Jewish Agency, and has formed the subject of official complaints by the Zionist Organisation to the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. Dr. Weizmann referred to the matter at length in his covering letter to the memorandum on the development of the Jewish National Home presented to the Mandates Commission session held in June 1928. The Report of the Experts of the Joint Palestine Survey Commission (Findings of Fact) published about the same time, contained the following passage: Up to the present the Zionist Organisation has received from the Government little in the way of active assistance in the settlement of Jews on the land. The long drawn-out negotiations between the Zionist Organisation and the Government with reference to the allottments of State lands for Jewish colonisation, more particularly in the Beisan area, have up to the present produced no positive result.
The British Government in its observations to the Mandates commission made a reference to this matter, stating that regarding the Beisan lands the claims arising out of that agreement have been and are being investigated by a special commission which has made considerable progress. In addition, attention has been given to the possibility of enabling individuals and bodies concerned with agricultural development to acquire land from beneficiaries under the Beisan agreement on the conditions on which those beneficiaries hold the land. While His Majesty’s Government are hopeful that a satisfactory conclusion may be reached, the statement added, they wish to point out that the matter is one in which it is necessary to proceed with caution in order to guard against the landless class of the presant beneficiaries under the agreement thus nullifying the object of that agreement.
The Mandates Commission in its report following consideration of this question said: “The Commission hopes that means may soon be found to utilise to the full the possibilities of the land in the Beisan area”.
The question was also dealt with in the report to the Sixteenth Zionist Congress and in a number of the speeches delivered at the Congress by Dr. Weizmann, Mr. Jabotinsky, Mr. Ussischkin, and others. The report of the Executive to the Congress remarked that although it was regretted that no progress could be recorded in the granting of Government lands to Jews, a statement of policy, however, had been published by the Government indicating the conditions whereby the transfer of certain State-owned lands in the area of Beisan from the possession of the present lessees to Jewish purchasers may be facilitated.
Sir John Hope Simpson in his Report published at the end of 1930 remarks that “another area that has unfortunately passed from the ownership of the Government consists of the lands of Beisan, Semakh, and Ghor-ul-Fara’a, which are the subject of the agreement concluded in November 1921 and known as the Ghor Mudawwara Agreement. It was probably politically desirable,” he continues, “that the lands covered by this agreement should be settled with the Arab tenants who had undoubtedly enjoyed the use of the tract in the time of the Ottoman Government. At the same time the result of the agreement and especially of the modification of the agreement made in September 1928, have taken from the Government the control of a large area of fertile land eminently suitable to development and for which there is ample water available for irrigation.
“The grant of the lands,” Sir John adds, “has led to land speculation on a considerable scale. The custom is that the vendor transfers to the vendee the liability for the price of the land still owing to the Government and in addition takes from him a sum varying from three to four pounds a dunam for land in the Jordan Valley. These proceedings invalidate the argument which was used to support the original agreement. It was made in order to provide the Arabs with a holding sufficient to maintain a decent standard of life, not to provide them with areas of land with which to speculate.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
