Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 102)

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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 102)

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expropriation of the 51 peasant families living on and cultivating the
land (Scholch, 1982:22).
Commenting on the heavy resistance put up by Abu-Shusha villagers,
one author observed:
The hatred of the Germans engendered among the
Arabs, which found violent expression ... mainly in
the form of attacks on German transport, nearly
reached the boiling point again during 1909 crisis.
In Wilhelma [built on Abu-Shusha land] direct
clashes took place...The uprooting of trees ..and
the grazing of cattle in the nearby village of
Rantiya ..on cultivated land was accompanied by the
explicit threat that the villagers would harrass
the Germans until they were forced to leave. The
tension reached its height with the armed assault
of neighbouring Arabs on the German settlement..A
year later the German settler Fritz Unger was
murdered..by villagers from Tira. (Carmel,1975:451)
One member of the Bergheim's family, according to the same source
was also killed.
The case of Abu-Shusha suggests that the issue of peasant
expropriation became more problematic when foreign settlers were
involved in agriculturai colonization. For example,the Templars who
settled the land bought by the Bergheims provided a non-indigenous
source of labour power to the new landlords. Yet, this by no means
should be taken to imply that in the absence of settlers, indigenous
cultivators were saved from expropriation.
The privatization of the Marj and the Maritime Plain, it will be
shown, initiated the process which eventually led to the expropriation
of the peasants on these lands. The problem of peasant expropriation,
must not be treated in isolation from the context of the general
socio-economic changes which developed in the late 19th century. The
fact that the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian peasants were
still tied to the land does not mean that peasants resisted new forms
88
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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation

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المنشئ

Nahla Abdo-Zubi

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