Table Of ContentThe Impact of Zionist Colonization on Palestinian Arab Society before 1948
Author(s): Nathan Weinstock
Source: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Winter, 1973), pp. 49-63
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THE IMPACT OF ZIONIST COLONIZATION
ON PALESTINIAN ARAB SOCIETY
BEFORE 1948
NATHAN WEINSTOCK *
Evaluations of the impact of Zionist colonization on Palestinian Arab
society have tended to emphasize the reduction of the majorityo f Palestinians
to the status of refugeesf ollowingt he 1948 and 1967 wars. A subject to which
less attention has been paid, but which is certainly not lacking in interest,
is the effecto f Zionism upon the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine prior
to 1948. A view often expressed by authoritiesw ho can by no means be con-
sidered as mere propagandists-wherever theirs ympathiesm ay lie as regards
the Palestine problem-stresses the benefitst he Arab population is alleged
to have derived fromJ ewishs ettlementi n the Mandatory period. 1 The follow-
ing quotation fromA lbert Dorra's assessment of the impact of Zionism on
Palestine and on the neighbouring countries may be regarded as typical:2
Zionism is one of the major factors that have determined the economic
evolution of the Middle East since the end of the last war.... The result
in every field affected by Jewish colonization has been very great, es-
pecially if measured by the scale of development in the surrounding
countries during the same time. Arid land and malarial swamps were
turned into blossoming fields and groves, barren slopes were covered
with fruit trees and forests....B y applying capital and science, and by
judiciously selecting profitable crops and choosing the right methods
of farming,t he Jews were able to increase appreciably the productivity
of Palestinian agriculture though only after years of hard pioneering
exertions. Their Arab neighbours gradually learnt from their improved
methods, greatly assisted by the large amounts of Jewish imported
* Nathan Weinstock is the author of Le Sionismec ontreIs rael (Paris: Maspero, 1969) and
a former member of the left-wing Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair. This paper
will appear in the Commemoration Volumes to be published as a part of the Golden Jubilee
Celebrations of the Department of Sociology of the University of Bombay.
1 D. Horowitz, "Arab Economy in Palestine," in J.B. Hobman, ed., Palestine'sE conomic
Future (London: Percy Lund Humphries, 1946), pp. 55-65; A. Dorra, "Palestine and the
Economic Development of the Middle East," Ibid., pp. 98-104; Robert Misrahi, "Les Isra6-
liens, les Arabes et la Terre," Les Temps Modernes,1 47-148 (June 1958) pp. 2182-2209, etc.
2 Dorra, op. cit., pp. 98-104.
IPS - 4
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50 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
capital that flowed into their hands through land purchase, internal
trade, and throughg overnments ervicesp aid for by taxes collected from
the Jews.... In many respects the expansion in Palestine of Jewish
immigrationa nd the development of Jewish economy can only bring
advantages to the Middle East. Not only will Jewish capital flowing
on to the Palestinian Arabs help them raise their own economic standard
to the level reached by the Jews, but the Jewish economy itselfw ill be
an ever-growing consumer of foodstuffsa nd raw materials supplied
by the neighbouring states. Moreover, the growing capital goods and
quality goods industries of Palestine will also be in a position to help
accelerate the industrial equipment of the Middle East countries...
One might add that this sounds quite plausible. After all, even if one
categorically rejects Zionism and takes a totally negative view of the manner
in which its aims have been implemented, this should not preclude us from
recognizing its achievements. It is a matter of common knowledge that the
apartheid regime in South Africa affordst he oppressed indigenous coloured
population a higher standard of living than the neighbouring independent
states. To admit facts such as these does not imply that one approves of or
condones apartheid. It could actually easily be shown that the very dynamics
of segregated South African society have been instrumentali n bringinga bout
this, at firsts ight paradoxical, situation. In contemporary Israel the Arab
labour force enjoys a standard of life far more favourable than in the Arab
countries. Needless to say, this does not contradict the reality of national
oppression of the Palestinian population in the Jewish state.
The aim of this research is to examine the statementsr egarding the al-
leged benefits Zionism is presumed to have held for the Palestinian Arabs
beforet he war of 1948. The thesisw ill be that the Zionist enterpriser epresents
a deviantP atterno f colonizationin comparison with the usual schema (exploita-
tion of the indigenous labour force by the settlers). These unique features
which were implicit in Zionist ideology, did not, however, emerge clearly
until the second wave of Jewish immigration (roughly from 1903 onwards).
Before this date, Jewish settlementsi n Palestine did not evolve any charac-
teristicsa t variance with the prevalent colonial pattern, to the extent that
many disillusioned, idealistic Zionists broke off their relationship with the
movement because they considered that the Jewish settlersh ad become mere
"planters."
To understand how this peculiar situation arose, a concise description
of the Zionist movement is required. Initially the creed of the Jews who as-
pired to returnt o the Holy Land in order to settle there, as long as Zionism
retained this primitive form,i t remained a romantic ideology of a pre-polit-
ical nature, reflectingt he anguish of the oppressed Jewish masses in Eastern
Europe still permeated by the spirit of the ghetto and conveyingt heir yearn-
ing for a national revival. During the last quarter of the nineteenthc entury-
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IMPACT OF ZIONIST COLONIZATION 51
the era of modern Imperialist expansion-the currentt ook a new turn under
the influenceo f Theodore Herzl, who had developed a new brand of Jewish
nationalism in his pamphlet Der Judenstaatan d had convened the firstZ ionist
Congress at Basle in 1897 on the basis of his programme. The assembly de-
scribed its aim as being the establishmentf or the Jewish people of a lhomei n
Palestine secured by public law. This modernized version of the original
Zionist mystique, now stripped of its initial religious and quasi-messianic
content and remoulded in the spirit of contemporary nationalism, is com-
monly called "political Zionism." It carried obvious implications for the
inhabitants of Palestine, since they were scheduled to become aliens in their
own country-assuming they were to be allowed to remain where they were-
withoute ven being consulted.
But the unique characteristicso fJewishc olonization in Palestine eventually
appeared as a consequence of an ironical development in its history,n amely
the growth of a powerful socialist wing within the Zionist movement. This
current was especially prevalent in Eastern Europe - the main reservoiro f
prospectivei mmigrants- under the influence of Tolstoy's doctrinesa nd the
general popularityo f socialisma mong Jewishy outhd uring the years preceding
the firstR ussian Revolution of 1905. The defeat of this first major attempt
to revolutionize the Tsarist Empire, following in the wake of a fearful
wave of pogroms, tremendouslys trengthenedt he left-wingZ ionist current:
the futureo f the revolutionarym ovement in Russia seemed very dim indeed,
and many disappointed Jewish revolutionistss witched their allegiance to
Zionism. These people sought to combine theirf ormers ocialist commitment
with their desire to build a Jewish state in Palestine. The result of this new
blend of Zionism was a socialistic doctrine that was to have a lasting effect
on Zionist ideology and practice. It is hardly exaggerated to claim that the
distinctivep attern of Zionist colonization in Palestine (the growth of the col-
lective Kibbutzim and co-operative settlements,t he unique importance of
the trade-union Leviathan, the Histadrut, the foremost employcr of the
country) can be traced back entirely to the left-wingZ ionist currcnts. In
fact, the majority of the immigrants who belonged to the third wave of
colonists (at the beginning of the 1920's) were left-wingZ ionist pioneers.
The leading theoretician of this movement was Ber Borochov.
Under the influence of these Labour Zionists,J ewishs ettlementi n Pales-
tine was to take on a new form,c onvenientlyy et sincerelyr ationalized by the
use of Marxian terminology. Now the firstJ ewish settlers,a ided by Baron
Rothschild, had bought land from the feudal owners (the effendis) and
exploited the fellaheen who had formerlyt illed the land in a typical colonial
fashion. But the left-wingZ ionists meant to create a Jewish workingc lass in
Palestine: this was to be achieved by implementing the slogan of exclusive
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52 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
Jewish labour which in effectp rohibited the native population from being
employed on Jewish farms or factories. The Jewish National Fund was es-
pecially adamant about this in its policy of leasing land to prospectivec ol-
onists. Strangely enough, this racialist attitude, motivated by the need to
suppress the competitiono f cheap local labour, which was obviously strikingly
similar to the stand taken by reactionaryA ustralian or American trade unions
on the immigrationo f cheap labour fromt he colonized countries,w as actually
explained away as signifyinga rejection of colonial practice. To tolerate
Arab labour on Jewish farms,t hese Zionist pioneers were fond to point out,
was tantamount to colonialism. Thus they construed their advocacy of a
policy of Jewish labour as being a necessary consequence of their socialist
outlook.
This attitude was at the root of the "economic separateness"3 that struck
all the observerso f the Palestinian scene. This philosophy had clearly to lead
to some type of partition of the country in the long run. In fact, the subse-
quent development of the Zionist experiment rested entirely on the twin
principles of (exclusive) "Jewish labour"-i.e., the boycott of the landless
fellaheen-and "Jewish produce"-i.e., the boycott of Arab produce.4 This
was required in order to guarantee the viability of Jewish enterprisesa nd
the comparatively high wage level of the Jewish worker. Ultimately,t he
implementation of this segregationistp olicy led to the development of a
quasi-autarchic Jewish economy organized on rigidlyn ational lines (national-
istic trade unions, militia, schools and social and political institutions),
embodying the embryo of the futureJ ewish state.
The interestingp oint about Zionist colonization in Palestine is that it
cannot be explained by the mechanisms that generally apply to colonialism.
Palestine hardly representeda n important market or a vital source of cheap
labour in view of its modest population. Its raw materials were scarcely worth
mentioning. The land was abysmally poor. Surely this was not the ideal
place to which to export vast amounts of capital in the hope of reaping huge
profits! An expert on the agriculture of the Middle Eastern countries5 has
pointed out that in Palestine "the mostm odern and intensivem ethods achieve
only the same wheat yields as the Balkan peasant, with his primitive and
extensive cultivation." So much for the legend of "the land of milk and ho-
ney." And the authors of a standard textbook on the industrializationo f the
Middle East stressi n regard to Palestine that "it is not necessarily the pre-
sence of raw materials or cheap labour, or the proximity of markets that
3 Reportt o theG eneralA ssemblyb yt heU N Special Committeoen Palestine,G eneva, August 31,
1947, p. 19, no. 25.
41 Rony Gabbay, A Political History of the Arab-JewishC onflict( Geneva: Droz, 1959),
pp. 26-30 and Abraham Revusky, Les Juifs en Palestine (Paris: Payot, 1936), p. 85.
5 Doreen Warriner, Land and Povertyin theM iddle East (London, 1948), p. 52.
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IMPACT OF ZIONIST COLONIZATION 53
prompts industrialization. It was rather a 'psychological location of industry'
which brought men and capital to Palestine."6 These remarks are sufficient
proof of the special features of Zionist colonization, prompted by sentimental
considerations rather than by economic motives. Yet the application of co-
lonial techniques to Palestine ultimately gave rise to a typically colonial,
though markedly original, pattern of dispossessiono f the native population.
ChristopherS ykes has used the followingw ords to summarize the nature
of the problem resultingf romt he Zionist programme of a Jewish state based
upon its own working class and thriving upon a separate economy:
The land problem of Palestine came primarily from... the sales, often
of very large tracts of country, by absentee landlords to Zionist indivi-
duals and syndicates.A usual condition of such sales was that the tenants
should be evicted, for of what interestt o Zionists was the possession of
Arab-tenanted land? The wretched people who had earned a living,
sometimes for many generations, on the land in question, found them-
selves forced out of their homes and deprived without compensation
of their only means of earning bread.... Evicted tenants,t he real sufferers
by Jewish immigration, were the essence of the Palestine problem.7
The testimonyo f an Israeli historiani s especially valuable in this respect
because he illustratest he reaction of local Arab opinion to the implementation
of the Labour-Zionist ideology with its apartheid-like implications.8 This
is how he describes the attitude of the fellaheen before the First World War:
The local Arab fellaheen occasionally reacted-from the earliest days
of the new Yishuv-by perpetratingp hysical violence. These outbreaks
were not the resultso f the actual purchase by Jews of land in Palestine-
since most of the fellaheen themselves were not landowners-but of its
implementation. Hitherto the proprietors had been chiefly absentee
landowners to whom a percentage of the crops had to be paid but who
did not interferew ith the traditional rights of pasture, or with other
aspects of everyday life that gave rise to bad feeling and sometimes
conflict when the Jewish colonists came to settle on the land they
purchased. In the course of time the neighbouring Arabs of each
village or colony also manifested their dissatisfaction with the
attempts to introduce Jewish labour.
With regard to the arrival of the wave of socialist-Zionists ettlers,h e comments:
These Russian Jewish labourers, togetherw ith the principle of exclusive
Jewish labour, were considered by a number of Zionists and members
of the Yishuv to constitutea major factori n arousing the hostilityo f the
Palestine Arabs.
6 Kurt Grunwalda ndJ oachirn0 . Ronall, Industrializatiionn t heM iddleE ast (New York:
Council forM iddle EasternA ffairsP ress,1 960), p. 259.
7 ChristopherS ykes,O rdeW ingat(eL ondon: Collins, 1959), p. 106.
8 Yaacov Ro'i, "The Zionist Attitudet o the Arabs 1908-1914", MiddleE asternS tudies
IV, 2 (April 1968), pp. 201-202, 223 and 233.
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54 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
And finally,h e sketches the ideology of the left-wingZ ionists as far as the
"natives" were concerned:
They preached that the international brotherhood of workers applied
only to workers who were already secure in their employment; it did
not apply to a potential proletariat that had to strugglet o find employ-
ment and could not refrainf romc onflictw ith those workersw hose place
of work they must take for themselves.
When the firstZ ionist settlerse stablished themselvesi n Palestine (from
1882 onwards), the countryw as a small underdeveloped cornero f the Ottoman
Empire. The existing subsistence economy was already caught in a process
of disintegrationa s a result of the gradual absorption of the Turkish Empire
into the capitalist orbit. This trend was accelerated by the acquisition of
large tracts of land and real estate by the Greek Orthodox Church which
resulted in the injection of considerable amounts of money into the country;
the activities of the German Templar sect, who set up a number of small-
scale enterprisesi n Palestine before World War I; the effecto f the financial
contributionss ent to the Levant by Lebanese and Syrian emigrds; and, lastly,
as far as the Palestine Jewry,w ho constituted approximately one-tenth of
the indigenous population, was concerned, the remittances sent by Jewish
communities abroad to sustain the scholars residing in the Holy Land. 9
On the whole, the countrys till remained semi-feudala nd the small trickle
of trade was confined to the larger towns. Eventually, Jewish colonization
gave the final impetus to capitalist penetration in Palestine, hastening the
ruin of the subsistence economy. The social pyramid was dominated by the
small aristocracy of landowners admitted to the effendio r governingc lass,
a mere handful of families.1 0 A numerically unimportant middle class,
composed of professionalm en, shopkeepers and prosperous owner-cultivators,
was in fact structurallyd ependent on this elite. At the lowest rung of the
ladder came the vast majorityo f the population, the fellaheen,t enant-farmers
or tillers of the communal grounds held collectively in mesha' tenure or,
more and more, landless peasants. 11A lthough small ownership was increasing
as a result of the breakdown of communal ownership (one of the objects of
the Ottoman Land Code of 1858), rural indebtedness was assuming such
tremendous proportions that a growing number of cultivators were forced
to sell their holdings to wealthy merchants and become share-tenants1. 2
9 Weinstock,o p. cit., pp. 62-75 and Robert Szereszewski," Palestine on the Eve of
Jewish Colonization" in Essays on the Structulroef the Jewish Economy in Palestine and Israel
(Jerusalem:M aurice Falk Institute,1 968), pp. 88-92.
10 PalestineR oyal CommissionR eport ("Peel Report"), Cmd. 5479, p. 44.
1 The Bedouins,b eing nomads,w ere not consideredp art of settleds ociety.
12 Warriner,o p. cit., p. 22.
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IMPACT OF ZIONIST COLONIZATION 55
The general situation is reflectedi n the followings tatistics: 91.8 per cent of
the land plots in the 1930's were inferiort o 100 dunums (1 dunum=0.247
acre) and yet they covered only 36.7 per cent of the cultivated area. On the
other hand, the thirteene states of more than 5,000 dunums-0.01 per cent
of the total number of plots - amounted to 19.2 per cent of the cul-
tivated area. 13
Now we can endeavour to assess the impact of Zionist colonization on
the various parts of Palestinian society. As the reader will notice, this analysis
bringso ut in a strikingf ashion the importance of the dual nature of the Pales-
tinian economy, in which a modern Jewish capitalist economy was "projected
onto a backward Arab economy, yet hermetically sealed and segregated
from it." 14
I. DEMOGRAPHY
The demographic mutation of Palestinian society has obviously been
the most apparent change brought about by Zionist immigration.T he Jewish
community, which amounted to some 24,000 people in 1882, had already
expanded to 85,000 in 1914. Palestine Jewry sufferedc onsiderably under the
rule of Jamal Pasha, the military governor of Syria during the First World
War, and its numbers declined appreciably. By 1922, however, the Jewish
population once again amounted to 84,000 persons, the total number of
inhabitants being 752,000. During the following years, as a result of immi-
gration, the Jewish minoritys teadily increased to 175,000 Jews in 1931 out
of a total population of 1,033,000. The rise of Fascism in Europe gave a con-
siderable impulse to immigration and by 1940 the Jewish community was
estimated to number no less than 464,000. At the end of the Second World
War the 583,000 Jews represented roughly one-third of the Palestinian po-
pulation, which was estimated at 1,887,000.15
Initially only a small minorityo f loosely related congregations living a
marginal life dedicated mainly to religious pursuits, the Jewish community
had been transformedi nto a tightlyk nit unit, increasingly aware of its na-
tional characteristics,w hich had developed on the basis of a quasi-autarchic
economy and been considerably enhanced by the practice of self-government
and the generalized use of the Hebrew language. The indigenous Jewish
community had been completely estranged from the Palestinian society to
whicb it initially belonged as a result of the segregated development of Zio-
nist society.
13 A. Granott, The Land Systemin Palestine( London: Eyre and Spottiswoode,1 952),
pp. 34-35.
14 Horowitz,o p. cit., p. 55.
15 I.N.S., Memento 1:conomique,L a Palestine(P aris, 1948), p. 38.
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56 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
On the other hand, the Arab societyt oo had acquired a distinctd egree
of cohesion. The Palestinian Arabs, especially the Moslems who constituted
the vast majority of the villagers, were increasing at an extraordinarilyf ast
rate-their birth-rate (47.8 per 1000 during the years 1927-39) was believed
to be one of the highest of the world, while their death-rate had fallen from
an average of 28.6 per 1000 in 1925-27 to 20.3 per 1000 during the period
1927-39.16 This improvement was largely due to the effecto f Jewish im-
migration on health standards.
Even such an uncompromisingf oe of Zionism as Abcarius17 grudgingly
admits that "no one, however, can cavil at the moderate statement in the
Peel Report that the measures carried out by the Jews have benefittedt he
Arabs incidentally." The trend towards urbanization should also be stressed:
by 1942, 27.0 per cent of the Moslem population - compared to 76.0 per
cent of the Jews - lived in urban areas. 18
II. LAND
In this field the transformationw as especially acute. Jewish-owned land
increased from 25,000 dunums in 1882 to 420,600 in 1914.19 Thanks to the
acquisition of large tracts of land by the Jewish National Fund and other
Zionist private or public agencies, holdings amounted to 594,000 dunums in
1922, 1,058,500 in 1939 and 1,604,800 in 1941.20 The land was bought main-
ly from large landowners, mostly absentee landlords, and the transfero f
propertyu sually resultedi n the eviction of the tenants. According to Granott's
computations,2 only 3.8 per cent of the land acquired by Zionist settlers'
organizations,e specially the J.N.F. and its agencies, was sold by the fellaheen
themselvesd uring the years 1920-22 and only 1.6 per cent from 1923 to 1927.
It is difficultt o estimate the number of peasants evicted as a result of these
sales effectedb y the Arab landowners. "The number of landless agricultural
workers was estimated at 30,000 families or 22 per cent out of the total of
120,000 families dependent on agriculture, according to the census of 1931.
Their numbers are now certainlyl arger," stated Doreen Warriner in 1948. 22
In addition to the agriculturalw orkers,c ountlessf amilies driftedt o the towns.
Naturally, the sales increased the high pressure on the land, which was
16 Warriner,o p. cit., p. 54 and Horowitz,o p. cit., p. 55.
17 M.F. Abcarius, Palestine Throuight he Fog of Propaganda (London: Hutchinson,n .d.
[1946?), p. 118.
18 Nathan, Gass and Creamer,P alestine: Problema nd Promise( Washington:1 946), quoted
in Shlomo Sitton,I srael, Immigrationet Croissance1 948-1958 (Paris: Cujas, 1963), p. 70.
19 La Palestine,p . 57.
20 Great Britain,A Suirveyof Palestine,I (Jerusalem,1 946), p. 372.
21 Granott, op. cit., p. 277.
22 Warrinero, p. cit., p. 63.
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IMPACT OF ZIONIST COLONIZATION 57
furthera ggravated by the primitivea nd wasteful exploitation of the land in
Arab agriculture, the high birth-ratea nd the lack of opportunitiesf or em-
ployment in industry2. 3
Undoubtedly, these sales led to the settlemento f the Jewish agriculturists
in the most fertilea reas of the country.A rough assessmento f this trend can
be deduced fromt he fact that only 19.7 per cent of the Jews lived in the hill
districts( as opposed to the fertilep lains) in 1943 compared to 56.7 per cent
of the Arabs. 24
However, the tremendous inflow of capital into the hands of the Arab
landowners who sold theire statesc ontributedt o the developmento f cash-crop
farming and to increased productivityi n the Arab countryside.A rab citrus
plantations, for instance, increased from 22,000 dunums in 1922 to 144,000
in 1937. 25 During the years 1925-34, it was estimated that the productivity
of Palestinian Arab agriculture amounted to 151 per cent of that of neigh-
bouring Syria. 26 This trend was stimulated furtherb y the boom experienced
by the Palestinian economy during the Second World War.
Nonetheless, although the inflow of capital was an answer to the tech-
nical problems of Arab agriculture, (i.e., mainly the process of introducing
irrigationa nd changing over fromt he production of energy-producingf ood-
stuffst o that of protective foodstuff-s the cultivator's standard of living
increased by 171 per cent through irrigationa lone), it could not solve the
structuraaln d social problemosf Arab farming,n amely the twin problems of
indebtedness and land tenure.2 7
In 1930 it was estimatedt hat the average indebtednesso f a fellaheenf amily
was [P 27 on which interesta t an average rate of 30 per cent was being
paid, while the average income of a fellaheen family was between L'P
25-30 per annum. Thus it was virtually impossible for any farmer to
repay more than a fractiono f his debt, and a debt, once incurred,c ould
never be cancelled, but had to be renewed at intervals at exorbitant
rates of interest2. 8
One need hardly add that under these circumstanceso nly the privileged
stratum of rich landowners could think of investing capital in agriculture
(if they did not prefert he quick gains of speculation in real estate).
The dramatic situation of the fellaheen and the pressure on the land,
aggravated by the continuing land sales of the effendic lass to Zionist or-
ganizations, was the backcloth to the Palestinian revolt of 1936.
28 Ibid.,p . 58.
24 Nathan et al., accordingt o Sitton,o p. cit.,p . 68.
25 Horowitz,o p.c it.,p . 59.
26 Misrahi,o p. cit.,p . 2192.
27 Horowitz,o p. cit.,p . 59.
28 Warrinea, op. cit., p. 62.
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