Village Statistics 1945: A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine (ص 36)
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- عنوان
- Village Statistics 1945: A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine (ص 36)
- المحتوى
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36
Village Statistics 1945
tivated area of the Beersheba sub-district was increased by more than 65 per
cent during the five years of 1931-1935, thus:
1930-1931 1,266,362 dunums
1931-1932 1,380,742 »
1932-1933 1,493,682 »
1933-1934 1,345,429 »
1934-1935 2,109,234.” »
Mr. Granovsky went on to point out that “The experts of the Jewish
Agency estimate the cultivable area of the Beersheba sub-district at 3,500,000
dunums, apart from any new tracts which may become cultivable in the future
when supplies of underground water are found and provision is made for
storing the rainwater which now runs off unused.’ He concluded by chal-
lenging the official definition of the term ‘cultivable.’2
Sir John Hope Simpson supported the Jewish Agency contention when
he said: “There is practically an inexhaustible supply of cultivable land in
the Beersheba area’ given the possibility of irrigation.’
The Beersheba sub-district has been inhabited from time immemorial
by the bedouin tribes of Palestine who cultivated what areas they were able
to depending on the amount of rainfall in a given year. Furthermore, it should
not be forgotten that Arab practices have been to rotate cultivation, that is,
lands cultivated one year are left fallow for one or two subsequent years
because of lack of fertilizer and sufficient rainfall. Therefore, when it is
estimated that the ‘cultivable’ lands of the Beersheba sub-district are only
2,000,000 dunums, it actually means that the cultivated lands in any one year
are in the neighbourhood of that figure, and that the total cultivable lands of
the region are at least twice the area cultivated in any one year.
As regards the ‘uncultivable’ lands of the Beersheba sub-district, here
also the rights of the bedouin tribes should not be ignored. Neither the
Ottoman Government nor the British Mandatory ever interfered with these
rights over the whole territory. The whole of these lands are traditionally
recognized to belong to the bedouin tribes, while certain bedouin tribes of
Jordan and the Sinai Peninsula exercised pasturage rights during certain
periods of the year. The fact that the Palestine Government did not include
these lands under the column of ‘Public’ but showed them separately and
admitted in its memorandum to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry
that “‘it is not safe to assume that all the empty lands south of Beersheba or
east of Hebron, for instance, are mewat’’ (dead land), is proof that Govern-
ment recognized Arab rights and interests in these lands.
In the circumstances, it is wrong to presume that the figure of 10,573,110
dunums appearing in the ‘Village Statistics’ under the separate column of
‘Uncultivable Land’ is government-owned.
(2) Granovsky, A., The Land Issue in Palestine (Jerusalem, 1936), p. 64.
(3) Cmd. 3686 — Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, 1930,
by Sit John Hope Simpson, p. 20. - تاريخ
- سبتمبر ١٩٧٠
- المنشئ
- Hadawi, Sami
- هداوي، سامي
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