User:Bless sins/Palestine

This article discusses the land ownership of Palestine prior to 1948. The total surface area of Palestine was approximately 26.3 million dunums, of which about one third was cultivable. Palestine was owned by thre predominant groups: the Arabs, the Jews and the mandatory government.

The Arabs, constituting no less then two thirds of Palestine's population, owned the vast majority of private property. According to one source Arabs owned about half of the land. Other sources, however, provide considerably lower figures.

Jews, making up about a third of Palestine's population, privately and collectively owned 1,393,531 dunums in 1945 (Khalaf, 1991, pp. 26-27) and 1,850,000 dunums in 1947 (Avneri p. 224). This constituted about 20% of cultivable, and 7% of the total land of Palestine.

Public property or "crown lands" belonged to the government of Palestine. The amount of Palestine owned by the government is also disputed. One source puts the number as high as 70% of the total land.

Land Ownership by district
The following table shows the land ownership of Palestine by district:

Land ownership by type
The land owned privately and collectively by Arabs and Jews can be classified as urban, rural built-on, cultivable (farmed), and uncultivable. The following chart shows the ownership by Arabs and Jews in each of the categories.

Land Laws of Palestine

 * Ottoman Land Code of 1858


 * Land Transfer Ordinance of 1920


 * 1926 Correction of Land Registers Ordinance


 * Land Settlement Ordinance of 1928


 * Land Transfer Regulations of 1940

Additional Resources
''A survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the information of the Anglo-American committee of inquiry'', Printed by the Government Printer, [Jerusalem?], 1946

Supplement to Survey of Palestine, Notes Compiled for the Information of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, Palestine Government Printer, Jerusalem, 1947

Reprint of the Survey and Supplement by the Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington, D.C., 1991, 3 Volumes

Jewish Villages in Israel, Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth Leisrael), Head Office, Jerusalem, 1949

Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development - UK Government report, Cmd. 3686, 01/10/1930.

Statistical Handbook of Jewish Palestine, Department of Statistics of the Jewish Agency, Jerusalem, 1947