Merchants and peasants in the Nazareth region, 1922 – 47

Abstract

In Nazareth, the wholesale merchants of agricultural commodities made every effort to acquire crops during harvest time, when commodity prices were at their lowest, and to sell them a few months later when demand (and prices) had increased. To facilitate this, merchants established close economic ties with peasant proprietors, in particular by providing them with a ‘safety net’ in lean years in the form of loans at comparatively attractive rates. An unwritten part of this arrangement was that a peasant in such a relationship with a merchant would market most of the surplus of his cash crops at harvest time. A contract in the credit market was thus simultaneously a contract in the goods market, ensuring that merchants would receive payment in crops, while peasants were paid in advance for their produce. It was also the custom that in cases of default, the merchant became the owner of the mortgaged land and the former landowner became the tenant. In such circumstances, the new tenancy agreement was usually interlinked with other agreements, especially in regard to animal husbandry.

Notes

The following archives were accessed for this paper: ISA: Israel State Archives, Jerusalem; PRO: Public Record Office, London (now National Archives); Barclays: Barclays Bank Archives, Manchester; CZA: Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem; Hagana: Hagana Archives, Tel Aviv; RHs: Rhodes House, Oxford.

1 ISA/Mandatory Maps Collection/ map number 297, ‘Dominant Use of Lands, Quality of Lands and Irrigated Lands’ [Government of Palestine, 1945]. This was also what was advised by my interviewees. See more in Nadan [2006: chapter 2].

2 E.g. Interview with Nimir Qasim Muafa from ‘Ein Mahil (b. 1910) who spoke about his childhood in the Ottoman period and his life under the Mandate; in the Mandate period he was a fallā and shopkeeper; from 1937 he was also the mukhtār of his village (18 August 1999). Interviews with Tatūr Jamāl from Reina (b. 1935), the son of a fallā īn family (20 August 1999). Interviews with Muli Amad Yāsīn from Shafa ‘Amr, (b. 1923), son of an owner-cultivator fallā who employed others on his lands (22 August 1999).

3 Interviews with Muli Amad Yāsīn and Mohammad Marāwa (known as Bayrūti, b. 1929) from Reina, a fallā in Safuriyya during the Mandate Period (19 August 1999). Interviews with Nimir Qasim Muafa and Tatūr Jamāl. Interview with Sālim Moamad Abū Amad (known as Abū‘Afif ‘al-hishis’, b. 1923) from Nazareth, son of a family of owner-cultivators and landlords from Tel ‘Adas; during the Mandate period they moved to Nazareth, where the family continued to lease lands and also established a mercantile business, where they lent money to fallā īn (21 August 2000).

4 Also interview with Nimir Qasim Muafa.

5 Interviews with Mohammad asūna, Sālim Moamad Abū Amad and Mohammad Amad Abū Amad (Abū Riad, b. 1918) from Nazareth, a butcher and merchant of animals and meat during the Mandate period. Interviews with Amad Husayyn Gadir (Abūalah, b. 1924), Bedouin in origin, from the Gadir tribe; during the Mandate, a semi-nomadic agriculturist and also employed in the Palestinian Police; the interview was held in his tent next to Bīr Maksūr (18 August 1999).

6 Interviews with Mahib Nimir Sulī (b. 1934–35) from ‘Ilut, son of a fallā īn family (22 August 2000). Interviews with Abū‘Abdallah (b. 1921) from Mashhad, the mukhtār's son in the Mandate period and later the mukhtār of his village (6 April 1999 and 17 August 1999). Interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb from Nazareth, the grandsons of ‘Abdallah Yūsif Ya‘aqūb, a merchant and moneylender; they – especially Mr Fārūk Ya‘aqūb, the older one – used to work with the grandfather in his business (25 March 1999).

7 Also interviews with Nimir Qasim Muafa.

8 Interviews with Mahib Nimir Sulī, Abū‘Abdallah, and Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb.

9 Interviews with Sālim Moamad Abū Amad, Mahib Nimir Sulī, and Mohammad Amad Abū Amad.

10 Interviews with Abū‘Abdallah, Tatūr Jamāl, Nimir Qasim Muafa, and Mohammad Marāwa.

11 Interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb, and Sālim Moamad Abū Amad.

12 Interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb, and Mohammad Amad Abū Amad.

13 Note that this discussion is only of wholesale prices, and does not deal with the difference between wholesale and retail prices.

14 ISA/(RG6)/BOX1928/1101/2, 13 November 1939, ‘Note by the Treasurer on the Issue of Agricultural Loans in 1939’.

15 Government of Palestine [1930b: 10]. For this failure see Nadan [2006: 212–60].

16 As was argued in interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb, and Sālim Moamad Abū Amad.

17 For theoretical remarks on interlinked transactions, see Ellis [1993: 156–60] and Ray [1998: 561–72].

18 For example, interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb, and Sālim Moamad Abū Amad.

19 Interviews with Sālim Moamad Abū Amad.

20 E.g. PRO/CO/733/290/8, February 1933, Secret, Cabinet, ‘Policy in Palestine: Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies’, p.1. Interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb.

21 Interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb.

22 The name of the interviewee is held by the author.

23 Interviews with Mohammad Amad Abū Amad.

24 Especially the interview with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb.

25 Mashad's Register of Rights (1943). This was shown to me by Mr. Mohammed Mar‘ī.

26 Interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb, and with Sālim Moamad Abū Amad.

27 For example, from interviews with Nimir Qasim Mutafa, Abū‘Abdallah, and ‘Alī Abū Yūsif Zu‘abī from Dai (b. 1923, today from Nazareth), a fallā in the Mandate period (26 March 1999).

28 For a theoretical approach, with some historical indications of such segmentation and the rationing behind such a credit system, see Ray [1998: 406, 536–7, 540–3].

29 Interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb.

30 As observed in interviews, for example, with Abū‘Ātif Fāhūm (b. 1927/28) from Nazareth, the son of Yūsif Fāhūm, the Mayor of Nazareth during different years of the Mandate Period; his father was also a landlord (17 August 1999).

31 CZA/S25/10395, 1924, a letter from the Vice Grand Rabbi of Hebron to the Palestine Zionist Executive about the Usurious Loan Ordinance of 1922. He sought to persuade the government to change the ordinance, as it could have brought losses for the richer Hebron Jews who made loans to nearby villages.

32 ISA/(RG2)/BOX135/F/734/1/40, 1941–46, ‘Analysis of Customers’ Liabilities to Banks and to Certain Credit Cooperative Societies’. Barclays/11/317, 20 January 1938, a letter from the General Manager, Barclays Bank, to the Local Directors in Jerusalem [al- usayni, 1946: 201].

33 Interviews with Sālim Moamad Abū Amad.

34 There are no comprehensive data for regular employment, yet this picture emerges from the various secondary and primary sources used for this study. In interviews, for example, permanent wage employment was mentioned in only one case, while sharecropping featured in all the others.

35 It seems that the fallā īn's purchase of lands from such rich landowners was rare. This is indicated by the fact that while such large estates were sold to Jews, they were sold as a single unit containing hardly any enclaves of other Arab property. See broadly Stein [1985].

36 PRO/CO/733/290/8 (February 1933), Secret, Cabinet ‘Policy in Palestine: Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies’, p.1. This was also mentioned in interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb, and Mohammad Marāwa.

37 Ya‘akov Firestone's study of two Arab villages, which was also skillfully summarised in Graham-Brown [1982: 115]. Interviews with Jamāl ’Ilyās Khuri (b. 1905) from Meghar, a fallā and later a policeman during the Mandate period (23 August 1999). Interviews with Ya‘aqūb Nāir Waqīm (b. 1908) from Ramah, the son of a fallā īn family who worked as an farmer in the late Ottoman and Mandate periods (6 April 1999). Interviews with Nimir Qasim Muafa and with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb. Also interviews with Slīmān ‘Adawī (b. 1926–28) from Tur‘an, a fallā in the Mandate period and an Agriculture Adviser in Israel; he worked with some who had been Agriculture Advisers in the Mandate period (5 April 1999). Interviews with Abū‘Ātif Fāhūm. Hagana/105/178 ‘‘Ain Mahel: Intelligence Report’. CZA/S25/9851 ‘Notes on the Protection of Cultivator Ordinance 1933–6 and the Land Disputed Possession Ordinance 1932–4’, p.1.

38 PRO/CO/733/290/8 (February 1933), Secret, Cabinet ‘Policy in Palestine: Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies’, p.1.

39 Interviews with Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb.

40 Interviews with ‘Alī Abū Yūsif Zu‘abī, and Yūsif and Fārūk Ya‘aqūb.

41 For example, interviews with Al-‘Othmān Sālim Marāwa (b. 1918), who worked as a fallā on his family farm until his village, Safuriyya (north), was destroyed in the 1948 War (30 August 1998).

42 Interviews with Slīmān ‘Adawī, Ya‘aqūb Nāir Waqīm, ‘Alī Abū Yūsif Zu‘abī, Jamāl ’Ilyās Khūri, Mohammad Marāwa, Tatūr Jamāl, Nimir Qasim Muafa, Abū‘Ātif Fāhūm, and Muli Amad Yāsīn. Also, Hagana/105/178 ‘‘Ain Mahel: Intelligence Report’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amos Nadan

This essay was prepared for a panel on ‘Multidisciplinary Glimpses of Nazareth in the 20th Century’ held at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Association for Israel Studies. I wish to thank Geremy Forman, Ian Lustick and Dan Rabinowitz for their constructive comments.