Bought, not Stolen

How Zionists acquired the land which became Israel

May 22, 2026

Chayaleah and I recently released an episode about the books that we’re reading, and you seemed to like it, so I’m trying out a new project.

I’m going to write about certain aspects of the books I’ve read, focusing on key themes and events that I think might interest our listeners, from time to time (as my schedule allows).

This will be a test run, so let me know what you think…

Enjoy.

-Jay

Sources for this article:

Army of Shadows by Hillel Cohen

The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 by Kenneth W. Stein

“Sheikh Rashid Hasan was a fine and well-known figure. He was the mukhtar of the town of Beisan and, of course, there were many people in the town who were interested in selling…not a single plot in Beisan was sold without his knowledge”[1] – Hillel Cohen, Army of Shadows

If you were to make the grievous mistake of going on to Instagram, TikTok, or X and trying to learn about the history of the Jewish-Arab conflict in the Middle East, along with the genocide claim and apartheid, the other claim you would hear is one involving how the Jews stole the land from the Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine. And as with all these other stories, this claim is equally false. The reality is that between 1917 and the time of Israeli independence, thousands of Palestinians willingly sold land to the Zionists.

During World War I, in November 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, whereby it explicitly provided its support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in what would later become the British Mandate of Palestine, which inherently included immigration and land acquisition by the Zionists in the region. By 1930, the Yishuv had purchased approximately 1.2 million dunams of land: roughly 450,000 from foreign landowners, 680,000 from large local estate owners, and 75,000 from fellaheen smallholders.[2]

Today the question is moralized. For the Arabs who sold the land, it was material.

The Arabs sold because they needed the money. The 1930s brought crop failures, drought, locusts, insufficient plow animals, and usurious interest rates, conditions Stein calls “all totally unrelated to Zionist policies.” The Yishuv could offer prices that were “high, sometimes exorbitant,” and for many sellers the temptation was impossible to refuse.[3]

For the Arab elite, owning land had long symbolized strength and influence. As that symbolism faded, they chose the cash over the symbol.

From this emerged the samasirah, a professional class of Arab brokers, which included some of the most influential Arabs in the region: the mayor of Tulkarem ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Hajj Ibrahim and his sons, the mayor of Jaffa ‘Omar al-Baytar and his sons, several prominent sheikhs, and Sheikh Rashid Hasan of Beisan, whom we referenced at the top. Their tactics could be predatory, including manufactured debt traps that forced families into distress sales. The samasirah operated as independent actors with their own financial interests, not as Zionist agents.

From the Zionist perspective, the desire for land was effectively unlimited. What capped the purchases wasn’t the demand for land or offers from Arabs to sell the land; it was the Zionist capital available to acquire it. Initially, the Yishuv acquired land wherever it was made available. Later, it decided to focus on contiguous plots of land to build larger communities in more defensible areas. As Stein wrote, “[t]he only factor limiting the pace and scope of Jewish land purchase prior to and after the institution of the Mandate was insufficient funding.”[4]

Ultimately, opposition to Arab land sales to Zionists became, as Cohen said, “one of the principal focal points around which the Arab national idea in Palestine coalesced” and “the archetypical act of treason.”[5] And yet:

· Of 89 members of the Arab Executive elected between 1920 and June 1928, at least one-quarter had been involved in land sales personally or through family.

· Of 48 attendees of the Seventh Arab Congress in June 1928, at least 14 had been involved.[6]

· Of an Arab delegation which visited London in March of 1930, “One-third... might be described as somehow having personally compromised their nationalist goals” through prior sales.[7]

So stark was the difference between some Arabs’ leaders’ words and deeds that the Arab national activist, Akram Zu‘itar wrote in his journal:

So stark was the difference between some Arabs’ leaders’ words and deeds that the Arab national activist, Akram Zu‘itar wrote in his journal: “Oof, oof, what can we do? The subject of brokers who sell Arab land to Jews is becoming more and more severe…The son of the mayor of Tulkarem, Salameh ‘Abd al-Rahman, is deeply involved in land speculation, and there is no one who will cast stones at him, much less open fire on him. A member of the Supreme Muslim Council sells land to the Jews and remains a respected personage, Tulkarem is full of land brokers, and Haifa’s city elders make deals with Jews, and the same is true in Gaza and Beersheva. How many senior government officials who speak in the name of Arab nationalism and help make land deals easier, and so far not a single land broker [simsar] was boycotted, even though they ought to get the death penalty…Public declarations of not selling land to Jews did not equate to the actual activities many of the leading Arabs in the territory undertook.”[8]

Both the Arab community and the British mandate authority made efforts to stop the sales. What broke the Arab silence was that after the 1929 riots the Arab press began printing the names of brokers, for which they were attacked as enriching themselves “from the lives of the country.” It was at this point that Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, issued a fatwa forbidding sales to Zionists.

However, when the Arab community started formal organizations, such as the Arab National Fund, to combat the Zionist land purchases, the defensive strategies proved ineffective. According to Stein, this was due in large part to the community being “generally poor, unorganized, uneducated, unsophisticated, and splintered”[9].

The British tried a variety of tactics to create roadblocks to the Zionist land acquisitions: bureaucratic maneuvers such as the Shaw Commission, the Hope Simpson Report, and the 1930 Passfield White Paper, and laws such as the Transfer of Agricultural Land Bill, the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance, and the Land Disputes and Possessions Ordinance. The MacDonald letter of 1931 neutralized all this work by nullifying the Passfield White Paper and postponing land restrictions for a decade.

You would think that at the very least, during the years of the Arab revolt from 1936 to 1939 Arab land sales to Zionists would have decreased dramatically and while there was a decrease, it was not nearly as severe as one would have imagined. During that period, Arabs still sold approximately 140,000 dunams to the Zionists, only about 30% below the previous four-year period.[10] This included Arab sellers offering the Jewish National Fund between 200,000 and 300,000 dunams in December 1937.[11]

As Cohen wrote in Army of Shadows, “Neither the rebellion nor the murder of dealers nor the British Land Transfer clause was able to halt the sale of land.”[12]

Two decades of contemporary land records from British, Arab, and Zionist sources describe the same market: Arab sellers approaching Zionist buyers in numbers that consistently exceeded the Yishuv’s capacity to pay. The land that ultimately became the State of Israel was not seized at gunpoint. Rather it was sold how any other good is sold, with one side providing the supply and the other side providing the demand.

So, the next time a TikTok video tells you the Jews stole the land, think of Sheikh Rashid Hasan. The mukhtar of Beisan. The Arab leader of the town. And not a single plot in Beisan was sold without his knowledge.

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