British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 300

CHAPTER VIII.

159. Ma'Iul is situated on the Haifa-Nazareth road in the foothills which bound the plain of Esdraelon on the northern side. It has an area of about 16,000 dun urns of which nearly half is cultivated land. It has at present a population of about 900 persons, all Arabs; there are about seventy principal cultivators, the rest of the men of the village being hired ploughmen and labourers who do not own or lease land.

160. The lands of the village were originally the property of the Sursok family of Beirut. The villagers of Ma'lul were their tenants. In 1921 the Sursoks sold the lands to a Jewish company, the Palestine Land Development Company, with the exception of an area of 2,000 dunums which was excluded from the sale and remained in Arab hands. This area of 2,000 dunums, only part of which was cultivable and which contained the village built-on area, was insufficient to support the Arabs of Ma'lul and, as a result of intervention by Government, the Palestine Land Development Company agreed to lease to these Arabs an additional area of 3,000 dunums of plain land and 150 dunums of grazing land. The lease was to run for six years from 1921 to 1927, the rent payable being one-fifth of the crop. The Company was to install a water supply for the villagers' animals, and, if the Company failed to do this, they were to be liable to pay £P. 200 a year damages and the rent was to be remitted. The Arabs were to be entitled at any time before the expiry of the lease to purchase the land at £P .3 a dun um.

161. During the period of the lease the water was supplied and the rent was regularly paid. On the expiry of the lease an advocate who had been engaged by the Arabs claimed that .he had notified the Company of his clients' readiness to purchase the land, but that he had received no reply; the Company maintained that the Arabs had failed to exercise their option. But, at the instance of Government, the Company agreed to extend the lease until 1931, provided that the right of option to purchase was not thereby restored. However, no formal extension of the original agreement was ever executed. The Arabs have remained on the land from then until now, paying no rent and receiving no water.

162. In 1927 the Ma'lul lands were transferred from the Palestine Land Development Company to the Jewish National Fund. By the terms of its constitution the latter organisation is not entitled to sell any of the land in its possession.

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