Village Statistics 1945: A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine (ص 29)

غرض

عنوان

Village Statistics 1945: A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine (ص 29)

المحتوى

IV - State Domains
29
THE PALESTINE GOVERNMENT, in its statement to the Anglo-American
Committee of Inquiry of 1946 outlined its position in relation to state domains
as follows:
“The public lands of Palestine are all those lands which are
subject to the control of the Government of Palestine by virtue of
treaty, convention, agreement and succession, and all lands which are
acquired for the public service or otherwise. Article 12 of the 1922
Order-in-Council requires that ‘All rights in or in relation to any
public lands shall vest in and may be exercised by the High Com-
missioner for the time being in trust for the Government of Pales-
tine.’
“The public lands of Palestine include lands varying greatly
not only in physical characteristics, but also in the extent and nature
of the ownership and control of Government in them. There are
large areas in which the precise interest of the State has not yet been
ascertained.
“Among the public domain are the lands which the Ottoman
Government took over from the Sultan Abdul Hamid after the revo-
lution of 1908; these lands in turn were taken over by the Palestine
Government. They are called j7ftltk or mudawwara. Practically all
of them were and are occupied to some extent by Arabs who claim
rights based on many years presence on them.
“Land which has not been granted or assigned to anyone and
is consequently unregistered and which is distant from cultivation
or habitation is called mewat, i.e., dead land. The mewat lands are
part of the public domain. 'When such lands are found to be free
from any private rights, they are registered in the name of Govern-
ment. It is frequently difficult to assume that there was in the past
no grant, and consequently it is not safe to assume that all the empty
lands south of Beersheba or east of Hebron, for instance, are mewat.
‘Another category of land is that of matruka, This is common
or communal land which is left for the general use of the public,
or which is assigned for the inhabitants generally of some village
or group of villages. The control of the Government over these lands
is limited to that necessary to enable the public to benefit from them

هو جزء من

Village Statistics 1945: A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine

تاريخ

سبتمبر ١٩٧٠

المنشئ

Hadawi, Sami

هداوي، سامي

مجموعات العناصر

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PLO Research Center: Facts and Figures