Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 456

quisite areas for the existing Arab population. It pointed to the transfer of the Huleh concession as a precedent for a series of development schemes based on these two principles. It proposed that the Jewish national land agencies be enabled to explore the possibility of carrying such schemes into effect in various parts of the country by the discovery and proper utilisation of water resources with a view to making new land available for Jewish colonisation without detriment to the position of Arab agriculturists. 3. Political agitation among the Arabs against the sale of land to the Jews has been intensified, being largely fostered by the Wakf administration, which is bent upon enlarging its own possessions. Attempts were made to revive the issue of " Arab landlessness " as an argument against the Jewish National Home. The Jewish Agency had ocasion, in its discussions with the Government, to point repeatedly to the outcome of the " displaced Arabs " inquiry as having effectively disposed of the charge that Jewish colonisation tended to create a landless class among the Arabs. The final figure of displaced Arabs to whom the well-known definition was found to apply was 656, and of these only a fraction was prepared to avail itself of the opportunities of resettlement offered by the Government; the remainder had in the meantime been reabsorbed in agriculture. Nevertheless, suggestions were again mooted officially in the course of the period under review for the introduction of protective measures the effect of which would have been to restrict the freedom of land purchase by the Jews. The Jewish Agency strongly opposed these suggestions as unwarranted by the facts and as likely not only to hamper the progress of the Jewish National Home but to retard the development of the country in general. It insisted that the acquisition of land by the Jews was the essential basis of the establishment of the Jewish National Home, while at the same time it was the main contributory factor to the agricultural progress of the Arabs, inasmuch as those Arabs who could dispense with a part of their possessions were thereby obtaining the requisite capital for the more intensive cultivation of the remainder of their holdings. The Executive further urged that in so far as difficulties were experienced as a result of the pressure of the growing population upon the land resources, the remedy lay not in restrictive legislation but in a comprehensive programme of constructive measures for the development of agriculture, in State assistance to close settlement and schemes of synthetic Jewish and Arab development, and in the enlargement of the territorial scope of Jewish colonisation. 4. The Executive likewise opposed the introduction of measures restricting new citrus planting which was contemplated at a certain stage in view of the difficulties experienced in the marketing of the growing orange crop. Here again it urged the adoption of positive measures on a wide scale, such as the extension of transport facilities, the promotion of co-operation, the organisa- 456