Political report of the Executive of the Jewish Agency submitted to the ... Zionist Congress and the ... session of the Council of the Jewish Agency · 1937-08-01 · 8.1937 · p. Seite 99

99 of land to the transferees under the Ghor Mudawwara Agreement at Beisan, in which transaction the obligation to provide land for? Jewish settlement was disregarded. It has since failed to revise this settlement on lines which might have assured the rational exploitation of the soil and made a considerable area of good agricultural land available for Jewish settlement. The Jewish Agency submits the urgent need for such a revision and for the preparation of a comprehensive development scheme for the entire area based on a rational exploitation of soil and water resources, the consolidation of Arab holdings and the release of surplus land for Jewish settlement. 5. The provision of Article 11 of the Mandate for the introduction of "a land system appropriate to the needs of the country." having regard to the promotion of "close settlement and intensive cultivation," has not been implemented. Government has retained the practice of granting title to land by way of new registration on the basis of certificates of possession issued by Mukhtars and village notables. 5. Government has enacted land legislation which has adversely affected security of title in agricultural land. The law of Palestine does not recognise and enforce the usual right of possession enjoyed by a registered owner of land elsewhere. Under the Land Disputes (Possession) Ordinance it is virtually necessary for a breach of the peace to occur before the machinery for settling the dispute is set into motion. Not even a prima facie superior right of a registered owner is recognised as against an utterly unsubstantiated claim of a trespasser without any vestige of title. Moreover, Government has by administrative policy made it increasingly difficult for Jewish landowners to enforce their possessory rights to land registered in their names. A particular instance of this is the instruction given to the Police to refrain, unless expressly ordered to do so by the Court, from according land owners the assistance they would usually be entitled to expect in preventing trespass on their land. 7. Recent alterations in the law relating to the protection of cultivators and the machinery set up under that law have led to grave abuse and to blackmailing claims by persons not entitled to protection under the law. 8. Government has recently proposed fundamentally to alter the law by restricting the freedom of disposition of land by small holders. The scheme proposed is based on the inadequate knowledge of the facts, in particular with regard to the area of Palestine which may be properly regarded as cultivable and the area required to support an agricultural family on different categories of land. The proposal is also based upon incorrect conclusions of fact relating to the alleged recent increase in Jewish purchases of