Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 125)

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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 125)

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vary sharply. One view held during the 1920s by various Zionist and
British officials suggests that the Marj was an empty wilderness
full of swamps. In early 1920, Herbert Samuel, Palestine's first High
Commissioner, had the following to report to the British
administration:
The whole aspect of the valley has been
changed.The wooden huts of the villages, gradually
giving place to the re-roofed cottages, are dotted
along the _ slopes; the plantations of rapidly
growing eucalyptus trees already begin to give new
character to the landscape; in the spring the
fields of vegetables or of cereals cover many miles
of the lands, and what five years ago was little
better than a wilderness is being transformed
before our eyes into a smiling countryside. (5)
Samuel's description of the Marj was reiterated by various writers.
Recent authors who adhered to the same point of view have qualified
their argument about the emptyness of the inland plain, the Marj, by
claiming that "Unsettled Beduin tribes", throughout the Ottoman period
raided and attacked the settled peasants and drove them out cf the
Marj. Speaking on this issue, A. Cohen writes:
During this period...{the Ottoman period]
gravest danger to the villages came from the
Beduins. When local rule was weak, strong Beduin
tribes raided peasant settlements, looted their
crops and animals, killed their men and destroyed
their property....The Beduins, practically
dominated the country.. Insecurity of life and of
property made settled living in the villages and
plains difficult, and often impossible". (Cohen,
1965: po 4-5)
Similar arguments are also made by other authors (Migdal,1980;
Ohana, 1981). Arguments presented so far, at the least, can be
described as baseless contentions produced to justify European Jewish
settlement.
A largely ignored description of the Marj provides contrary
111
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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation

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Nahla Abdo-Zubi

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