Status Updates From Light in Gaza: Writings Bor...

About 90 percent of the rebels were peasants, and for the whole three-year span of the Great Revolt, the countryside continued to play a significant role as political challenger of the status quo. Peasants organized and funded the revolt and protected the rebels. Between 1937 and 1939, the local leadership was in charge of all activism while the national leadership was in exile, based in Damascus.

As a consequence of the strike, the British targeted the organizing cadre, not the upper-class national leadership. The British were pleased with the relatively mild response of the revolution’s national leadership. Even its decision to end the general strike was made to protect merchants’ and citrus exporters’ profits.

During the revolt, national committees were organized to coordinate a general strike, and in May 1936, a conference was held involving all the rural national committees. These committees called for adopting a platform with pro-peasant agendas, such as abolishing the unfair agricultural taxation system and the immediate cessation of land sales,

The upper-class Palestinians initially united with the oppressed classes—consisting of workers and peasants—to maintain their leadership position against the national threat of Zionism. Yet, this unity required notables to enact structural changes demanded by the oppressed classes that would jeopardize the notables’ remaining power.

Approximately half of the lands purchased by Zionist funds were sold by absentee landlords, with residing landlords selling an additional 25 percent, while individual peasants sold less than 10 percent of lands. The latter were systematically pushed to sell because of British policies and taxes that typically favored the Jewish population and wealthy Palestinians.

In one example, the bourgeois Lebanese Sursock family, who were absentee landlords, sold their lands in Marj Ibn Amer to the Jewish National Fund, evicting 8,730 Palestinian peasants in the process.

It is important to note that Palestinian peasants were not a homogenous group, and class privilege was instrumental in shaping their connection to the land. For example, small peasants demonstrated great sacrifice for the national cause by selling their lands to arm the struggle.

In addition, Britain’s exorbitant taxes and the avarice of Palestinian notables left “some 30 percent of all Palestinian villagers landless.”

Zionist expansion, facilitated by British imperialism, to establish Israeli settlement early in the twentieth century uprooted many Palestinian peasant sharecroppers who cultivated the lands that Jewish settlers purchased or otherwise obtained.

Kayyali describes Palestinian farmers before 1948 as “more prone to action and revolt entailing self-sacrifice than other groups of society.” Palestinian peasants used various tactics, including soft resistance against the inequities of the capitalist system, protesting, raiding Israeli colonial settlements in the late nineteenth century, and the mobilization of the 1936–39 rebellion.

Furthermore, Israel used agricultural cultivation to create a sense of rootedness in the land for the early Zionists. By 1931, for example, about 19 percent of Jewish settlers were engaged in agriculture. A century later, Israel still propagates the myth of the absence of Palestinian land cultivation to legitimize its confiscation of land in the West Bank.

From the earliest days of interaction, Israel attempted to undermine and obscure Palestinians’ historical claims to the land by portraying Palestine as a neglected land, “a desert” that only became inhabitable and flourishing through Zionist agricultural effort in the early 1900s.

Sayigh observes that, owing to the pastoral production patterns in Palestinian villages, Palestine tends to be classified as a “subsistence economy”—self-dependent with only a few villages engaged in production for markets.

The peasant life is an interdependent one, never individualistic; people rely on each other to help with different tasks and agricultural practices. To have a large number of children and the support of the village was instrumental to the agrarian production that sustained peasant life.

British consuls’ reports of rising demand for Palestinian barley, citrus, cotton, and olive oil indicate high-quality products and advanced agricultural knowledge. Palestinian expertise in citrus grafting contributed to the skyrocketing of Jaffa’s orange exports from 290,000 orange cases in 1897 to 1,608,570 cases in 1913.

The majority of these crops were exported—for example, the cotton&sesame went to France, & the wheat to Italy.There was a growing demand for citrus trees in the early twentieth century, particularly from Jaffa, while Gaza was very famous for exporting barley.These records counter the myth,intentionally spread by Palestine’s detractors, that the country’s flourishing agriculture owed to the early Jewish colonists/

Palestine is located in the Fertile Crescent, where the earliest forms of agriculture were practiced, utilizing the region’s rich fauna and flora and wild seed species.
Historical records show that Palestine had a significant agricultural sector over centuries, producing diversified crops and goods such as olives, grapes, citrus, cotton, soap, sugarcane, and sesame.

Despite its small size, Palestine possesses a rich environment with a diverse topography. Palestine contains mountains, seacoasts, and valleys—above and below sea level—with a range of soil varieties allowing for a rich diversity of species and agricultural patterns. Plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, invertebrates, forests, and woodland all exist in Palestine, creating a rich environment for agriculture.

However, in the case of Palestine, I argue that peasants experienced certain historical events and systematic colonial policies & practices that reshaped their peasant identity and attachment to the land. The different roles the Palestinian farmer played—social agent, political mobilizer, and freedom fighter—became an integral part of the farmer’s identity,which went beyond the traditional notion of place attachment.

Scholars of place attachment argue that farmers, in particular, establish a powerful bond with their farms that affects how “they view and treat their land.” A reciprocal relationship develops between the land and the farmer, resulting in economic security and care.

Other works of folklore spoke of precautions people needed to consider when farming to ensure food security; for example, the proverb “ إذروا المساطيح من الريح” (Cover the fig-filled rooftops from the wind) informs farmers when and how to dry figs, a vital source of food.

Folk songs also link agriculture and nature with specific historical events. Take, for example, the lyric “ يا زتون ما مروا عنك عراقية بارودهم في كتوفهم مجلية ” (Oh Olive trees, Iraqis just passed by and, on their shoulders, they hold their guns), which was sung during the 1948 war when Palestinian women saw the Iraqi army coming to defend Palestine.

The proverb “ سنة الزرزور أحُرث في البور وسنة القطا بيع الغطا ” (When you see starling birds, it is the year to plant, but when you see Pterocles birds, no need to cover from the rain) links the prediction of a rainy year (or dry year) with the appearance of specific birds: starling birds imply heavy rain while Pterocles birds predict years with light rain.

They speak to planting patterns that reflect an agricultural calendar and an understanding of climate-related issues. For example, the proverb “سرحنا في شباط على زارعة العنبات” (In February, we plant grapes) indicates a specific time of year when grape seedlings must be planted.

Agriculture was an important expression of existence and connection to nature and the land. Just like indigenous peoples elsewhere, Palestinians transferred their agricultural knowledge and awareness through legends, songs, and proverbs, forming a heritage that was passed from one generation to another, creating an indelible and deeply rooted historical connection to the land and the landscape.

The Palestinians’ connection to the land is thousands of years old, as can be seen, for example, in their attention to olive and citrus trees. The Palestinian Canaanites used to grow olive trees and export olive oil to pharaonic families in Egypt, including the eighteenth pharaonic dynasty, 2000 BC..

As a child growing up in a Bedouin community in the Gaza Strip, my grandmother would tell me “يا جدة حِجر تراب ولا حِجر ذهب” (Oh, my granddaughter, a lap covered in the soil is better that one covered with gold). I didn’t understand why she would repeat those words, because Bedouin communities don’t settle in one place and they “lack attachment to one place.”