Palestine has been the subject of a fierce battle during the past year. It culminated with the ill-starred Passfield 'White Paper.' A fictitious scramble for 'elbow room' was staged in order to justify the Arab riots of 1921 and the Passfield statement of policy in 1930. In the following article, written specially for THE JEWISH STANDARD, Mr. Spiegelman, noted journalist and former editor of the Jewish Daily Bulletin, delves into official documents and explodes the land-shortage myth. -- THE EDITOR.
It all developed because of the "elbow-room" question.
In the year 1930 of the Christian Era, 13 years after the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, and after a decade of active Jewish settlement work in Palestine, the question was suddenly put to a confused and astounded world: "Is there enough elbow-room in Palestine for the Jews and Arabs to dwell together in peace?"
The awaited report of Sir John Hope is expected to shed much light on this perplexing problem, although many are by now convinced that the raising of the issue was an unfortunate move used to divert attention of the gazing public opinion of the world from the real dark spots in Palestine, inquiries into which might have exposed the seat of real responsibility for the Palestine bloodshed of a year ago.
Any traveler from the Western world who visited Palestine, be it only for a short while, must have carried away with him the impression that the country had been sadly neglected for many centuries, and that the territory west of the Jordan is both underpopulated and underdeveloped. The impression that any observer must gain even from a flying visit to the country is that Palestine can indeed stand a great deal of improvement, in regard to its agricultural, industrial and commercial growth. This impression gains particular strength from the fact that in Palestine, as nowhere else, the desert is so infrequently found in close proximity with civilization, and native neglect is so strikingly contrasted by modern Jewish culture in all the fields where sanitation, production and personal industry pave the road for the march of Western civilization. There, as perhaps nowhere else, the desert and civilization are engaged in a combat of man against nature, the like of which has not been seen since the days of the American Covered Wagon.
To the utter surprise and bewilderment of the world, the British Commission of Inquiry sent to investigate the cause of last year's riots returned no indictment against any one in particular. It whitewashed wherever and whomever it could, and for the rest it brought back the discovery that the reason for all that happened was the fear of the Arabs that there is not sufficient elbow-room for Jews and Arabs in the country.
To be sure, the now discredited Shaw report did not say in so many words that Palestine cannot absorb any further Jewish immigration; it sought, instead, to convey the impression by the subtle art of implication. "When the facts are against you, speak about the law; when the law is against you, speak of the facts; when both the law and the facts are against you, belittle your opponent." This eminent advice of a sophisticated lawyer to his new associate was apparently the guiding principle of those who drafted the chapter in the Shaw report dealing with the land problem in Palestine. They have made no study of the land problem of Palestine as such. They have not, so far as is known, called for the testimony of Col. E. R. Sawer, the Director of the Agricultural Department of the Palestine Government. He is known to have a favorable opinion, based on facts and many years of observation on the spot. They have merely reiterated the opinions and the "fears" of the Arab politicians without expressing their own opinion as to the reliability or the accuracy of the statements and allegations made. They preferred to belittle the absorption capacity and the possibilities of Palestine, and thus find a convenient "cause" for the outbreaks. The Palestine administration was obviously found wanting, but once fear is conceded to have been the cause of the Arab outbreak, it is an easy matter to explain. No government is in a position to know when "fear" may seize any section of the population and be properly prepared for it. The drafters of the chapter on the Palestine land problem in the Shaw report have become so engrossed in their "fear" complex that they extended it not only to the present Arab population, but even to the unborn Arab generations.
It is remarkable that the "elbow-room" question, as presented by implication in the Shaw report, has never been viewed in such a light before. It is curious that the entire question had not occurred to any of the experts who carried out an extensive survey of Palestine and its possibilities in 1927 under the auspices of the Joint Palestine Commission, which included such eminent experts as Dr. Elwood Mead, Commissioner of Reclamation of the United States Department of the Interior; Dr. J.G. Lippman, Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station of the New Jersey College of Agriculture; Mr. A.T. Strahorn, Soil Technologist of the United States Department of Agriculture; Professor Frank Adams of the University of California; Mr. Knowles A. Ryerson, Horticulturist, Agricultural Experiment Station, Haiti; Mr. C.Q. Henriques, Irrigation Engineer of the Zionist Organization in Palestine; Sir John Campbell; and Sir E.J. Russell. These experts dealt with the specific problems of the development of Palestine's agriculture, commerce and industry, and apparently entertained no fear that the country, with a total area of 8,000 square miles or 5,683,200 acres of land, is about to reach its saturation point at a time when the population is below the one million mark. They were satisfied that the exploitable land of Palestine is 4.5 million acres, of which approximately 2.75 million acres are considered as cultivable. They were even inclined to accept the opinion that out of the uncultivable 1.75 million acres a considerable area may be wrested for settlement purposes by the development of certain swamps and sand dunes, and by the extension of dry farming into the Negev.
The Shaw Commission, however, was so overwhelmed by its duty of reciting the Arab "fears" as an excuse for the bloodshed that it expressed a view that the "position seems to be that, taking Palestine as a whole, the country cannot absorb a larger agricultural population than it at present carries unless methods of farming undergo a radical change." It therefore recommended a scientific inquiry into the prospects of introducing improved methods of cultivation in Palestine. The Commission hastened to express another fear that the native Arab population may not always be equipped or fit for improved methods of cultivation. Without apparently committing itself to any view, the Shaw Commission labored to create by implication the "elbow-room" question in Palestine. The issue having been raised, and the Labor Government agreeing that it is necessary to institute such an inquiry, and undertaking it through Sir John Hope Simpson, the suspension of Jewish immigration and the rest that followed seems quite a "natural" course of events.
Of course, it was quite obvious that this way of attack which took the form of raising the "elbow-room" question was directed primarily against the Jewish National Fund, the agency of the Zionist movement for the acquisition of land in Palestine as the property of the Jewish people. It were the land purchases of the Fund in the Valley of Jezreel and at Wadi Hawareth that figure prominently in the hearings of the Shaw Commission, and in the unfounded assertions about "evictions" of tenants made by the Arab spokesmen during the inquiry, although even the Arab spokesmen were compelled to admit, as did the Shaw Commission, that the land transactions of the Jewish National Fund have been completed not only in full compliance with the prevailing Palestine land rules, but with every principle of equity and fairness. The Jewish National Fund has always, as did the other Jewish land purchasing agencies, sought to compensate the Arab squatters, and to help them settle on other land, at considerable expense beyond the price to the landlord, and beyond the extremist demands of the laws governing the transfer of land.
That this "elbow-room" question was but a myth which owed its origin to juggling with figures is now clearly established. This juggling with figures was exposed in the memorandum of the Jewish Agency, prepared by Dr. Leonard Stein, which was submitted to the Permanent Mandates Commission which carried the day in Geneva. This is a highly interesting story in itself and the reader will be greatly interested to follow the figures for a while.
The Shaw Commission supported the impression it sought to convey that there is no more room in Palestine by the following argument: the land available in non-Jewish ownership in Palestine is now approximately 10,100,000 dunams, the Commission stated. Taking the Arab rural population of Palestine, exclusive of the Bedouins, who occupy the desert area of the Southeast of Palestine, to be approximately 460,000, and assuming that the average Arab family consists of five persons, there are 92,000 Arab families in Palestine "who depend upon the soil for their sustenance." Assuming further that to obtain a living from the soil, an Arab family would need an area varying from 100 to 150 dunams of land; now, dividing the 10,100,000 dunams by 92,000, it would seem that, after taking care of the present Arab agricultural population alone, there would be no more room left. And what about the unborn Arabs, that is, the natural increase which is certain to come?
Mr. Stein rendered a real service to the cause of Palestine and of accuracy by his critical analysis. He showed very clearly that what the Shaw Commission sought to do was merely to indulge in generalizations without regard to accuracy or to the facts as they are known from everyday life. First, the figure 460,000 for the rural Arab population is quite uncertain in the light of official Government reports. Secondly, that even if the figure of 460,000 is more than a guess, it is unreasonable to assume that all of these 92,000 families consist of cultivators of the soil. It is obvious that not every Arab who lives in rural areas is a cultivator of the soil. According to a Palestine Government report, approximately 50 percent of the rural population is engaged in other occupations than cultivating the soil. Furthermore, the 100-150 dunams which the Commission assumes is necessary for each family are needed only when the farmer is engaged in growing cereals. How did the Commission gets its information that the entire Arab farming population intends to engage in the growing of cereals?
It is on such mathematics that the Shaw Commission based its contention that there is no room for Jews in Palestine without displacing Arabs. On this point, causing some confusion in certain liberal quarters, the Shaw Commission suggested the charge that through the Jewish settlement work a great number of Arab tenants have been "evicted." The Shaw Commission hastened, it is true, to absolve the Jewish organizations from any moral or other responsibility, adding that they completed their transactions in the most proper manner, with the consent of the government, and that furthermore, in all cases, they have compensated the tenants with money, even though the prevailing law did not require this of them. Again by implication the Shaw Commission expressed the fear of the Arabs that continued land purchases might tend to create a "landless proletariat." The Commission reiterated the allegation that "many Arabs" were "evicted" from the land which they had been cultivating under agreement with Arab landlords. This obviously was intended to heighten the impression of the acuteness of the "elbow-room" question in Palestine.
This assertion was, however, totally exploded when it was closely examined by the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. It is curious that in this regard the British representatives on the Mandates Commission did not prove the fallacy of the assertion. The minutes of the sessions of the Permanent Mandates Commission show that it was Lord Lugard, the British member, who directed point-blank to Dr. Drummond Shiels, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, the question as to whether he could give the Commission more definite information as to the dispossession of tenants in the Valley of Jezreel. Dr. Shiels was compelled to state that "he was unable to give these figures because no records were available."
Thus the "elbow-room" question stood exploded in the light of an impartial examination.
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