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Palestinian Rights And Losses In 1948
There have been countless studies of the 1948 events, which led to the creation of the state of Israel and the expulsion and dispossession of the Muslim and Christian inhabitants of Palestine; but none so far has dealt with the material and other losses of the Palestinians and given an estimation of their monetary value. This book presents, for the first time, an exhaustive evaluation of what Palestinians lost.
After an historical introduction describing Palestine under Ottoman and British rule, the author examines the central problem of land. He recounts the crucial events of 1947-1949, and provides a critical assessment of the work of the UN Palestinian Conciliation Commission. Finally, he makes his own careful economic assessment of Palestinian loses in 1948. The study is based on the official land records of the Palestine government and on the author's personal knowledge and twenty-two years' experience in land matters.
This unique research will prove indispensable to all who seek to understand the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the author's view, it will also be indispensable to the working out of a solution, if and when this becomes possible.
After an historical introduction describing Palestine under Ottoman and British rule, the author examines the central problem of land. He recounts the crucial events of 1947-1949, and provides a critical assessment of the work of the UN Palestinian Conciliation Commission. Finally, he makes his own careful economic assessment of Palestinian loses in 1948. The study is based on the official land records of the Palestine government and on the author's personal knowledge and twenty-two years' experience in land matters.
This unique research will prove indispensable to all who seek to understand the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the author's view, it will also be indispensable to the working out of a solution, if and when this becomes possible.
330 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2001
27 people want to read
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September 16, 2025
This 1988 work by Sami Hadawi and Asef Kubursi is a painstaking effort to demonstrate the scope of Palestinian property and human capital losses in the 1948 Nakba. Hadawi was a land assessor under the British Mandate government, and became one of the great authorities on the subject of Palestinian property and history. So if you want to get a solid understanding of the issue of land theft in Israel/Palestine, this is a very valuable resource.
The book begins with some very interesting chapters on modes of land tenure in Palestine in the Ottoman period, surveys the history of Zionist land grabs (legal and illegal) during the Mandate period, and concludes by attempting a quantitative summary of all losses in 1948. This latter piece is in extensive dialogue and critique of a similar effort in 1951 by the UN, which, according to our authors, severely undervalued the losses (in part due to the exclusion of communal properties). There is a tragic quality to this section of the book – one can imagine an alternative history in which the peace process of the 1990’s led to a meticulous contest over the modes of valuation employed in reparations for the people of Palestine, and in that alternative history these pages would be of great importance. As it stands they are fairly tedious to read and only for the most quixotic reader.
The earlier sections are very worthwhile, starting with a full picture of the modes of land use and tenure that existed prior to Western control. Of note are the “state lands” on which local farmers held rights of usufruct, and communal village lands that had no individual owner but were held for pasturage etc. These modes of property, more complex than fee-simple ownership, were exploited by Zionists both in their efforts to acquire land, and in the revision of history that portrayed pre-Zionist Palestine as generally empty and unused.
Hadawi also describes the divided and ineffective efforts of the Mandate government to keep the peace. Paradoxically, legislation meant to protect tenants actually encouraged squatters and trespassers to establish statutory rights, all while long-standing tenants were harassed and evicted. Even with the assiduous efforts of early Zionists, though, only a small minority of lands were under Jewish ownership at the time of partition.
While the quantitative details of property losses are not very fun to read, the moral claim for reparations is quite strong, and bolstered by the chapter on German reparations for Jewish victims of the Holocaust, which were comprehensive and included redress for human losses – psychological and physical pain, loss of life, professional losses – as well as that for movable and immovable property. I would love to read a good account of how those reparations contributed to economic growth and the development of social wealth in Israeli society – obviously that’s outside the scope of this book.
Zionist critics of the book – like Daniel Pipes, whose dismissive capsule review appears high on Google searches – attempt to equivocate, pointing to the Jewish exodus from Arab countries as similar in scale, and saying “let’s call the whole thing off.” If I were to read in him the best faith possible, I would note that both Hadawi’s book and the Pipes review were published in 1988 – when the groundbreaking work of New Historians like Benny Morris on the Nakba were just beginning to confirm the validity of the Palestinian narrative of Nakba, providing documentary evidence of massacres and a concerted effort by Jewish militias to drive hundreds of thousands off their land in a matter of months. If anyone today wishes to compare that atrocity to the departure of Jewish communities from Egypt and Iraq, their moral perspective is poorly calibrated indeed.
As a final note, there is a paradoxical quality to the whole effort of translating the loss of the Nakba into private property terms that are legible to a liberal, international audience. If you’re interested in exploring that paradox, I recommend the fascinating essay by Paul Kohlbry, Palestinian Counter-Forensics and the Cruel Paradox of Property. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wi...
The book begins with some very interesting chapters on modes of land tenure in Palestine in the Ottoman period, surveys the history of Zionist land grabs (legal and illegal) during the Mandate period, and concludes by attempting a quantitative summary of all losses in 1948. This latter piece is in extensive dialogue and critique of a similar effort in 1951 by the UN, which, according to our authors, severely undervalued the losses (in part due to the exclusion of communal properties). There is a tragic quality to this section of the book – one can imagine an alternative history in which the peace process of the 1990’s led to a meticulous contest over the modes of valuation employed in reparations for the people of Palestine, and in that alternative history these pages would be of great importance. As it stands they are fairly tedious to read and only for the most quixotic reader.
The earlier sections are very worthwhile, starting with a full picture of the modes of land use and tenure that existed prior to Western control. Of note are the “state lands” on which local farmers held rights of usufruct, and communal village lands that had no individual owner but were held for pasturage etc. These modes of property, more complex than fee-simple ownership, were exploited by Zionists both in their efforts to acquire land, and in the revision of history that portrayed pre-Zionist Palestine as generally empty and unused.
Hadawi also describes the divided and ineffective efforts of the Mandate government to keep the peace. Paradoxically, legislation meant to protect tenants actually encouraged squatters and trespassers to establish statutory rights, all while long-standing tenants were harassed and evicted. Even with the assiduous efforts of early Zionists, though, only a small minority of lands were under Jewish ownership at the time of partition.
While the quantitative details of property losses are not very fun to read, the moral claim for reparations is quite strong, and bolstered by the chapter on German reparations for Jewish victims of the Holocaust, which were comprehensive and included redress for human losses – psychological and physical pain, loss of life, professional losses – as well as that for movable and immovable property. I would love to read a good account of how those reparations contributed to economic growth and the development of social wealth in Israeli society – obviously that’s outside the scope of this book.
Zionist critics of the book – like Daniel Pipes, whose dismissive capsule review appears high on Google searches – attempt to equivocate, pointing to the Jewish exodus from Arab countries as similar in scale, and saying “let’s call the whole thing off.” If I were to read in him the best faith possible, I would note that both Hadawi’s book and the Pipes review were published in 1988 – when the groundbreaking work of New Historians like Benny Morris on the Nakba were just beginning to confirm the validity of the Palestinian narrative of Nakba, providing documentary evidence of massacres and a concerted effort by Jewish militias to drive hundreds of thousands off their land in a matter of months. If anyone today wishes to compare that atrocity to the departure of Jewish communities from Egypt and Iraq, their moral perspective is poorly calibrated indeed.
As a final note, there is a paradoxical quality to the whole effort of translating the loss of the Nakba into private property terms that are legible to a liberal, international audience. If you’re interested in exploring that paradox, I recommend the fascinating essay by Paul Kohlbry, Palestinian Counter-Forensics and the Cruel Paradox of Property. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wi...
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