WHO OWNED JAFFA?

After the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, many questions have been asked about Arab refugees and land ownership. Jaffa provides an excellent case study to provide some insight into these vexing questions.

Before 1948, the biggest landowner in the Jaffa district was the government (the British under the mandate), followed by the churches, absentee (Turkish) owners, Jewish residents and lastly, Arab or Palestinian owners. When the United Nations gave Jaffa to a future Palestinian state, only the tenant majority of Arabs were considered. The reality of the majority of residents of Jaffa who owned their properties being Jewish, was ignored. As no compensation or protection was offered, the Jews with right could refuse to leave and ask for the protection of the newly formed Jewish state.

This situation came about because of the snowball effect on Palestinians, of the Ottoman land reform, of 1858:

• Some lost their land without even knowing they no longer owned it.
• Some gave their land as surety to unscrupulous moneylenders.
• 'Real estate agents' pretended to secure land and then secretly sold it to a third party.
• The village leaders were corrupt and took land for themselves.
• The average villagers did not understand the Turkish tax system and they gave their land into the 'protection' of the most powerful families who sold the land to the Jews.

Often, the duplicity wasn't discovered until the new owners drove them off their land and by then Palestinian society had become too fragile to hold people in the country. They had no reason to stay and the possibility of becoming caught up in a war, even one they had started, provided a strong self-preservation reason to leave. This they had done many times before - sometimes to return, sometimes to move to new countries within the Ottoman Empire. This 'wandering' has always been the way of the Middle East.

Before the land reform of 1858, the Turks had a complex system which they applied throughout the Empire. 

In Ottoman Palestine:

• The state was the major property owner inside the 'city walls' of the four official cities, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Tiberius and Safed - this was 'wakf' or endowment land. People lived in 'wakf' houses for generation after generation without paying rent - they paid 'tax' and this gave them the 'right' to a house.
• Land, outside but close to the walls of the cities, was 'mulek' or privately owned land. This valuable well-cultivated land of gardens, orchards and vineyards were mostly owned by absentee landlords or the churches. They charged rents, which were seldom paid. 
• In the countryside, all land was 'miri' or state owned and cultivated by taxable tenants. The tenant system had complicated user rights based on law, tradition and religion. Before the new laws came into being, most of the cultivatable land was allocated by the state to a group (family - 'village') who used the land as a collective land user, called a 'musha' but the state remained the owner. When land was no longer cultivatable, it reverted to the state and new land was allocated to the 'village'.

The 'musha' system destroyed farming and made it impossible for a tenant to make a profit because of ridiculous laws:

• No permanent improvements were allowed - like removing stones from a field or putting up a wall.
• It was illegal to plant trees - so no new olive groves, plantations or orchards for 300 years.
• Nobody owned land - it was all communal, so nobody really cared.
• Every year the land was reallocated - a bad farmer would get good land and a good farmer poor land.

The system is still being followed by some Arab farmers resulting in poor land development with the only viable Arab farming being the keeping of goats and sheep on the hills.  

In 1863, the 'musha' system was supposed to end and the land given to individual private owners. This only happened to a significant degree in Ramallah and Jerusalem. Everywhere else, the tenants were forced to bid for the land they lived on at open auctions. The villagers could not compete with speculators and lost their land. Tenants went from having permanent and hereditary rights to cultivate the land, to having nothing - Ottoman law did not recognize squatter's rights.

Before 1880, the area southeast of Jaffa was virtually unpopulated. Along the southern shore, there were only uninhabited sand dunes. The Arabs in this area was subsistence farmers living in mud huts or nomads who appeared from time to time. The land they farmed on and regarded as their own, because they never paid rent, was owned by absentee landlords in Turkey or Christians in Jaffa. The owners were more than happy to sell to the Jews. It was here the six major Jewish colonies in the Jaffa area were established. They had contracts to deliver grapes to the winery in Zichron Ya'akov and it was grapes which got them through the hard times. The Arab farmers had no equivalent system and were powerless when disaster struck.

The Arabs had a deep respect for Baron Rothschild and while the Jews were under his protection, they were safe from attack. He was fair in his dealings with all groups and ensured that on his properties the Arabs enjoyed job security. In 1899, the Baron transferred his business interests and land ownership to the local Jews. The Arabs started losing their jobs and financial hardship spread. This was exacerbated when in 1903, the Jewish owners of land refused to renew contracts with the Arab tenants who in some cases had worked the land for generations - but without paying rent.

The Arabs had no support system to get them through hardships like the 1915 locust plague. Their only option was to take loans with their land as guarantees or sell.

In 1908, the Arabs were on the wrong side of history when the Jewish Poale Zion supported the Young Turks in their revolution. The Arabs stayed loyal to the Sultans and Pashas who sold everything they could to the Jews, to finance their extravagant lifestyles.

Due to a severe financial crisis after WWI, the Greek Orthodox Church started selling its properties in British Palestine. It had lost the financial support of the 'Russian' church after the Bolshevik revolution and due to a world recession after WWI, pilgrim numbers dropped. The patriarch, Damianus I had no choice but to sell and the only willing buyer was the various Jewish groups. Amongst the Arab members of the Orthodox Church, there was an absolute fury and it is understandable because it was farms, industry and housing that was sold. The Arabs lost their employment as well as their homes to the Jews.

The British transferred rights to tenants where it was still possible to do so but the Palestinian leadership was too corrupt for this to work. Arab families like the Husseinis would swindle land from the peasants - who were not allowed to sell to the Jews under the threat of death. They would then sell the land (often knowingly) to middlemen who sold it to Jews and foreign investors. These families became incredibly wealthy and built themselves palaces like the original building that is now the American Colony Hotel.

The majority of Palestinians who became refugees in 1948 were landless. They had the keys to the house but not the title deeds and they had years of rent and taxes outstanding. More than anything, it was the fear of scrutiny which made Palestinians leave - both Jaffa and Israel.