¹ Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (New York: Cambridge University Press,1987);Google ScholarShlaim, Avi, Collusion Across the Jordan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

² More general works of Palestinian political history during the Mandate include Porath, Yehoshua, The Emergence of the Palestinian Arab National Movement, 1918–1929 (London: Frank Cass, 1974),Google Scholar and The Palestinian Arab National Movement, 1929–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 1977);Google ScholarLesch, Ann Mosely, Arab Politics in Palestine, 1917–1939 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1979);Google ScholarKayyali, Abdul Wahhab, Palestine: A Modern History (London: Croom Helm, 1978).Google Scholar

³ Stein, Kenneth W., “One Hundred Years of Social Change: The Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,” in New Perspectives on Israeli History, ed. Silberstein, Laurence J. (New York: New York University Press, 1991);Google Scholar also idem, “Rural Change and Peasant Destitution: Contributing Causes to the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–1939,” in Peasants and Politics in the Modern Middle East, ed. Kazemi, Farhad and Waterbury, John (Florida: Florida International University Press, 1991).Google Scholar For recent studies on social and economic history, see Owen, Roger, ed., Studies in the Social and Economic History of Palestine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London: Macmillan, 1983);Google ScholarStein, Kenneth W., The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984);Google ScholarMiller, Ylana N., Government and Society in Rural Palestine 1920–1948(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985);Google Scholar and Khalaf, Issa, Politics in Palestine: Arab Factionalism and Social Disintegration, 1939–1948 (New York: State University of New York Press, 1991).Google Scholar

⁴ The much smaller, principally urban elite has receivedvirtually all the attention in the standard studies of Palestinian Arab society during the Mandateperiod.

⁵ Before the early 1880s, the tithe was fixed at 10 percent; Stein, , Land Question, 16.Google Scholar

⁶ Khalaf, , Politics in Palestine, 13–18Google Scholar; Stein, , “One Hundred Years of Social Change,” 61.Google Scholar

⁷ Government of Palestine, Report of a Committee on the Economic Conditions of Agriculturists in Palestine and the Fiscal Measures of Government in Relation Thereto (Jerusalem: Government Printers, 1930), 29.Google Scholar

⁸ By the 1930s money rent in tenancy arrangements became increasingly prevalent. See Stein, , Land Question, 142–46;Google Scholar and Report of a Committee, 42–44.Google Scholar

⁹ Among the many sources, see Stein, , “Rural Change and Peasant Destitution,” esp. 145–53Google Scholar; Abboushi, Wasef F., “The Road to Rebellion: Arab Palestine in the 1930s,” Journal of Palestine Studies 8 (Spring 1977): 23–46;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Yāsīn, Ṣubḥī, al-Thawra al-ʿArabiyya al-kubrā fi Filasṭīn (Cairo: Dar al-Kitab, 1967).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Abu-Lughod, Janet L., “The Democratic Transformation of Palestine,” in The Transformation of Palestine, ed. Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1971), 155.Google Scholar

¹¹ By 1923 nearly 75 percent of mushāʿ lands were owned by individuals living in the towns. Somewhere between 2.6 million to 3.3 million dunums of mushāʿ land were owned by absentee landlords. See Stein, , Land Question, 15.Google Scholar

¹² Sayigh, Rosemary, From Peasants to Revolutionaries (London: Zed Press, 1979), 48.Google Scholar

¹³ Graham-Brown, Sarah, “Political Economy of the Jabal Nablus, 1920–48,” in Owen, Studies, 109;Google Scholar High Commissioner (HC) Sir Harold Macmichael to Colonial Secretary (CS) Oliver Stanley, Colonial Office (CO), 30 April 1941, Public Record Office (PRO), File CO 733/76048/41/42/43.

¹⁴ Graham-Brown, , “Political Economy,“ 121.Google Scholar See 113–37 for a detailed discussion of the issues relating to land tenure and agricultural production.

¹⁵ al-Kayyālī, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, ed., Wathāʾ al-muqāwama al-Filasṭīniyya al-ʿArabiyya ḍidd al-iḥtilāl al-Baritani wa al-Ṣahyūniyya, 1918–1939 (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1968), 357–58.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Although controversy surrounds Jewish ownership, Stein's, Land Question is the most recent and best researched on the issue (see app. 2, 226).Google Scholar The figures are based on registered purchases and exclude government concessions.

¹⁷ Shaw Commission (1930), Johnson-Crosbie (1930), Hope-Simpson (1930), Lewis French (1931–33), and the Peel Commission (1937).

¹⁸ See Stein, , Land Question, 83, 105–8, noting land scarcity as early as 1930.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Porath, , The Palestinian Arab, 85.Google Scholar

²⁰ Stein, , Land Question, 186.Google Scholar

²¹ Arab-owned lands consisted of all citrus, banana, and “other” plantations; taxable and untaxable cereal land; and uncultivable land, equaling 10,325,833 dunums. Of the total, 4,807,260 dunums were uncultivable. Jewish-owned lands, which included the same types of land, totaled 1,193,253 dunums. Memo by CS Stanley, Oliver, 9 09 1943, PRO, File Foreign Office (FO) 371/35040.Google Scholar

²² Stein argues that the final tally of 899 landless (or about 5,000 earners and dependents) made by French, Lewis and the Development Department in the 1930s was not “demonstrative of anything except a Jewish Agency political victory”; Land Question, 157.Google Scholar The department, which was formed to deal with the landless problem, relied heavily on the Jewish Agency for documentation and opinions. All claims before the department were sent to the Jewish Agency before a final decision. Though Stein ventures no estimate of Arab landlessness caused by Jewish land purchases, he notes that the 1929 purchase of Wadi Hawarith lands, about 30 miles south of Haifa, alone caused the eviction of 900 of the 1,200 tenants at Wadi Hawarith (see Stein, , Land Question, 76–79).Google Scholar

²³ Calculated from ibid., 182 (table 13).

²⁴ Lesch, , Arab Politics, 69.Google Scholar

²⁵ Porath, , The Palestinian Arab, 129.Google Scholar The word is Porath's. Jewish labor policy originated in the 1920s. In the 1931–35 period, the Jewish population increased from 175,000 to 355,000.

²⁶ Palestine Government, Department of Statistics, “Survey of Social and Economic Conditions in Arab Villages, 1944,” General Monthly Bulletin of Current Statistics (12 1945): 756.Google Scholar

²⁷ Nathan, Robert R., Gass, Oscar, and Creamer, Daniel, Palestine: Problems and Promise(Washington, D.C.: American Council of Public Affairs, 1946), 196.Google Scholar The figure is useful only as a rough indicator, because no clarification is given as to how it was arrived at.

²⁸ Palestine Government, Census of Palestine, 1931, 2 vols. (Alexandria: Whitehead Morris, 1933), 1:282.Google Scholar

²⁹ An assumption borne out by the table on ownership size, based on Rural Property Tax records, in Stein, , Land Question, 28.Google Scholar In the Safad subdistrict, a mere 1.6 percent of the landowners (76 of 4,657) held more than 500 dunums. Scarcity of large landholders was even more apparent in the subdistricts of Acre (0.06%, or 57 out of 9,308) and Haifa (0.08%, or 25 out of 3,276).

³⁰ SeeTaqqu, Rachelle L., “Arab Labor in Mandatory Palestine, 1920–1948” (Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University, 1977), 54–56Google Scholar. There are no dependable figures on wage labor for the 1920s.

³¹ Ibid., 58.

³² Government of Palestine, A Survey of Palestine, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Government Printers, 12 1945 and 01 1946), 1:336–42.Google Scholar According to Jewish sources, the number of Arabs who worked on Jewish-owned groves at the peak of the season was as high as 8,000, clearly an exaggerated figure. See Taqqu, , “Arab Labor,” 59.Google Scholar

³³ Colonial Office (Economic Affairs section, no specific author), note on Arabs employed in Jewish and mixed undertakings, 27 May 1941, PRO, File CO 852/499/1941.

³⁴ See Taqqu, , “Arab Labor,” 84–98, 106–12Google Scholar, for a detailed discussion of these and related points.

³⁵ First Interim Report of Employment Committee, 27 October 1944, PRO, File CO 733/469/76284/45.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ Taqqu, , “Arab Labor,” 182.Google Scholar

³⁸ This paragraph is based on ibid., 172–73, 177–82. Also see Taqqu, Rachelle L., “Peasants into Workmen: Internal Labor Migration and the Arab Village Community Under the Mandate,” in Palestinian Society and Politics, ed. Migdal, Joel (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), 272–81.Google Scholar

³⁹ Nathan, , Gass, , Creamer, , Problems and Promise, 213.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Survey, 1:364–68. The Survey listed data for only seven of the eight subdistricts.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Taqqu, , “Arab Labor,” 182Google Scholar; idem, “Peasants into Workmen,” 279–80.

⁴² Taqqu, , “Arab Labor,” 187–88Google Scholar; idem, “Peasants into Workmen,” 281.

⁴³ Taqqu, , “Arab Labor,” 189–92.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Data on Arab urban slums from Survey, 2:691–96.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Taqqu, , “Arab Labor,” 223–24.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Jerusalem Regional Inspector of Labor, report to Director of Labor, 3 November 1945, Israel State Archives (ISA), Record Group (R.G.) 2 (Palestine Chief Secretary's Office), File I/LAB/1/45. (“I/LAB” is for Labor section.)

⁴⁷ Annual Report of the Department of Labor, 13 December 1942, PRO, File CO 733/441/75430/42–43. The Labor League, affiliated with the Histadrut, claimed 500 members.

⁴⁸ For an account of PAWS's and the Arab labor movement's history and its political interaction with the established leadership, see ʿYāsīn, Abd al-Qādir, “al-Ṭabaqa al-ʿummāliyya wa al-ḥaraka al-siyāsiyya fī Filasṭīn,” Shuʾūn Filasṭīniyya 33 (1976);Google Scholar and al-Hindī, Ḥanī, “Mulāḥaẓāt ḥawl awḍāʿ al-ṭabaqa al-ʿArabiyya al-ʿāmila fī Filasṭīn fī ʿ ahd al-intidāb,” Shuʾūn Filasṭīniyya 32 (1974).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Inspector General of Labor, Jerusalem Region, note to HC, 13 09 1943, ISA, R.G. 2, File I/LAB/31/42.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Survey, 2:764.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Confidential note from CS Stanley to HC Macmichael, 14 August 1942, ISA, R.G. 2, File I/LAB/31/42.

⁵² Labor Department Director's Report on Labor Exchanges, 8 July 1944, PRO, File CO 733/459/ 754302/44.

⁵³ On government patronage of Arab trade unionism, see Taqqu, , “Arab Labor,” 194–212.Google Scholar Also, Annual Report of the Department of Labor, 13 December 1942, File CO 733/441/75430/42–43.

⁵⁴ Memo from the Central Committee of PAWS, meeting at Nazareth, to HC, 14 January 1946, ISA, R.G. 2, File G/41/45, 1945/46. (“G” is for Local Government section.)

⁵⁵ Khattar, I., Assistant Inspector of Labor, Haifa, to Inspector, Northern Region, 19 05 1945, ISA, R.G. 2, File I/LAB/31/42.Google Scholar For activities and conferences of PAWS and other unions, see ISA, R.G. 2, File I/LAB/31/42; ISA, R.G. 2, File I/LAB/1/45; also, al-Hindī, “Mulāḥaẓāt.”

⁵⁶ Jamal Hamid, Safad Arab Labor Society Secretary, to Safad District Commissioner (DC), 24 February 1937, ISA, R.G. 27 (District Commissioner's Office, Galilee), File S225:27–2681.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Regarding the formation of numerous PAWS branches, see DC reports (under “Societies”), Galilee District, ISA, R.G. 27. The government and CO were suspicious of, but did not try to stop, these developments. The CS wrote to the HC that “it is difficult to see the object of trade unions in villages, and it will be recalled that other prima facie harmless organizations (e.g., the Boy Scouts) have been turned in the past to illicit purposes.” CS (Stanley) to HC (Macmichael), forwarded to Galilee DC, 28 September 1943, ISA, R.G. 2, File I/LAB/31/42.

⁵⁸ Miller, , Government and Society, 147–48.Google ScholarMukhtārs included a wide range of individuals, from men of little status to large landowners, from those representing narrow kinship or religious groups to those representing a whole village or villages (see 146).

⁵⁹ Miller, , “Administrative Policy in Rural Palestine,” in Palestinian Society, 140.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ E. M. Chudleigh, Inspector General, Jerusalem Region, note on FATU, 15 July 1943, ISA, R.G. 2, File I/LAB/31/42.

⁶¹ Ibid.

⁶² Regional Inspector of Labor, Jerusalem, to Director of Labor, 3 November 1945, ISA, R.G. 2, File I/LAB/1/45. See also Palestine Government report on the development of Communism in Palestine, 27 April 1946. PRO, File FO 371/52621.

⁶³ Graves report in HC (Macmichael) to CS (Stanley), 19 June 1941, PRO, File CO 733/75430/ 21941.

⁶⁴ Part of the following discussion is based on Taqqu, , “Arab Labor,” 212–21.Google Scholar