British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 303

CHAPTER VIII.
had arisen both parties should be treated as private citizens and expected to abide by the bargains made. The State Domain Committee therefore recommended that, in view of the Land Transfers Regulation, the exchange suggested should not be countenanced. and, moreover, that Government should not negotiate for an exchange of the Ma'lul land for State Domain elsewhere, and that the parties to the dispute should be left either to reach a compromize between themselves or, in the alternative, to obtain and abide by the judgment of the Courts. In September, 1940these recommendations were considered by the High Commissioner in Executive Council and in accordance with the decision then taken it was made clear to both parties that in no circumstances would State Domain land be made available for the purpose of settling the matter, and it was suggested to them that they should submit the dispute to independent arbitration. The suggestion of arbitration was rejected and, although various alternative proposals for negotiating a settlement were subsequently put forward and examined, there was no substantial change in the position or in the attitude of Government until 1944.

167. In that year, however, the villagers of Ma'lul having finally failed, after protracted proceedings, to establish in the courts rights of cultivation claimed by them under the Cultivators (Protection) Ordinance, were faced with the prospect of eviction from the land on application by the owners, the Jewish National Fund, to whom the land had in the meantime been finally adjudicated in the course of land settlement. Since Government had played an active part from 1920 onwards in retaining the Ma'lul Arabs in occupation of this• land it was represented that there was an obligation on the part of Government to take steps to ensure the future support of these agriculturalists. Apart from the lands now definitely awarded to the Jewish National Fund there remained for the subsistence of the Arabs an area of 2,000 dunums of which only about !100 dunums were arable land, the balance being either rocky grazing land or built upon. This area of "able land was considered to be far short of the minimum needs of a rural community of 900 persons.

168. The situation was therefore reviewed in September, 1944, by the State Domain Committee, who revised their previous recommendation in regard to an exchange of State Domain and proposed, in view of the changed circumstances, that the Jewish National Fund should be offered, in exchange for. the 3,000 dunums of plain land (zone B) in Arab occupation at Ma'Iul , areas of State Domain in Beisan which in total were almost equivalent in extent, which

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