Immediate prohibition of all sales of land by Arabs to non-Arabs was demanded today at a conference between Sir John Simpson, who has been commissioned by the British government to investigate problems of immigration and land settlement in Palestine, and Issa Elissa, editor of the Arab daily, “Falastin”.
Five thousand Arabs, according to the Arab spokesman, are unemployed in Jaffa and 1,600 in Jerusalem. Of the 11,000,000 dunams of land under cultivation in Palestine the Jews own 900,000, Mr. Elissa pointed out, leaving only 109 dunams for each Arab family which requires a minimum of 200 dunam. Twenty percent of the fellaheen are landless, Mr. Elissa claimed, while the majority are paying exorbitant interest rates.
The establishment of an agricultural bank, permitting the Arab farmers to repay loans in installments spread over en years and the introduction of intensive cultivation methods in order to enable Arab families to subsist in 20 or 25 dunams of irrigated land, were some of the reforms suggested by the Arab editor.
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