Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 100)

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عنوان

Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 100)

المحتوى

paid for an estate estimated at 20,000 dunams was 46,000 Tarif£f
Piasters or only about 46 Turkish Pounds (Scholch, 1982:25).
It has alse been reported that in 1874 Baron Montefiori, a French
creditor to the Ottoman state, announced the sale of 12 plots near the
road from Jaffa to Jerusalem with an estimated area of 25,009 dunams
(Scholch, 1982:22). In fact, one document shows that Theodor
Hextzel,the first leader of the World Zionist Organization proposed to
the Ottoman Sultan in the early 1880s the purchase of the whole o€
Palestine. In return, Hertzel offered to "regulate the whole finances
of Turkey" (Mandel, 1976:38).
The family whose land acquisitions were of the greatest importance
in this process was the Rothschilds. This family, whose loans to the
Ottoman state exceeded all other credit sources, acquired the lion's
share in the land sale process. They expanded their land ownership in
Palestine throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, with
holdings which stretched over the most fertile land in Palestine,
namely the Maritime Plain. The Rothschilds established their first
5 agricultural settlements on an estimated area of 25,000 dunams in
1872. By the year 1890, their estate grew to 14 settlements stretching
over 107,000 dunams, to 22 settlements occupying about 220,700 dunams
in 1900, and 47 settlements occupying an area estimated at 420,600
dunams in 1914. (13)
Despite the absence of legai protection for the peasants
cultivating the land offered for sale, very few cases of eviction from
the land were reported during Ottoman rule. From the major land sale
cases registered in this period, historical records provide proof for
only one case; that is, of Abu-Shusha peasants for whom, despite the
fact that they possessed legal title deeds, the sale of their land
86
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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation

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المنشئ

Nahla Abdo-Zubi

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