Palestine Land Settlement Problem: High Commissioner Appoints Committee of Three to Consider Settlem

The High Commissioner for Palestine, General Sir Arthur Wauchope, has appointed a committee of three to deal with the problem of settling on the land the landless Arabs of the Vadi Havarit area.

The members of the committee are Mr. Lewis French, the Director of Palestine Development, Dr. Maurice B. Hexter, member of the Jewish Agency Executive, and Abdullah Samara, representing the Arabs of Vadi Havarit.

In December, shortly after a number of Bedouin squatters had been trespassing on Jewish National Fund land at Vadi Havarit, the Palestine Government took a lease of a part of this land from the Jewish National Fund to settle the Arabs on it.

The head office of the Jewish National Fund issued a statement on the subject in March through the J.T.A., in which it explained that the Board of Directors of the Jewish National Fund had been constrained to enter into negotiations with the Government.

Several scores of Bedouins who had been on the land at Vadi Havarit prior to its acquisition by the Jewish National Fund, and subsequently camped on a neighbouring area known as Sheikh Mohamed Basset, the property of the Government of Palestine? occupied early in December land of the Jewish National Fund on which they placed their tents and cattle, the Jewish National Fund statement said. On the matter being brought before the Government, the latter proposed to the Fund that it should lease to the Government 5,000 dunams of its land for two years upon which the Bedouins could be temporarily accommodated, the Government stating that the Bedouins’ previous camping site was under water owing to the winter rains and would not be fit for use until the end of the winter. The Jewish National Fund replied that the land at Vadi Havarit had been acquired by it by legal purchase and it was under no obligation towards the Bedouins, all of whom had received full compensation for any possible loss. The Government was obliged and also able to accommodate these Bedouins elsewhere. Nevertheless, in view of the insistent demands of the Government, the Board of Directors of the Fund was constrained to enter into negotiations with the Government.

As a result, the statement explained, it was agreed that half of the area required for the temporary accommodation of the Bedouins would be leased from the Jewish National Fund. The area originally required from the Fund was thus reduced to 2,965 dunams and at the same time the period of the lease was curtailed to terminate by October 1st., 1933, when the land is to revert to the full possession of the Fund.

Further, the statement said, the High Commissioner has given his assurance that during the period of lease the Government will do all in its power to arrive at a final solution of the question of the Bedouins of Vadi Havarit.