Transferring Land Use and Ownership to Zionist Organizations, Agencies, and Individuals • The Balfour Declaration (1917) and Article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine (1922) – “...encourage[d]… close settlement by Jews on the land including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.”12 • In 1901, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) was founded, which devoted itself exclusively to the acquisition of land in Palestine for Jewish settlement.13 • At the start of the Mandate, Jews owned less than 3 percent of the total land.14 By 1948, Zionist colonizers, aided by the JNF, had acquired 1,393,531 dunums of land, roughly 6 percent of the total land area in Mandatory Palestine and 12 percent of cultivable land.15 More specifically, 714 km2 were acquired by Zionist colonization associations, mostly from large landowners who did not live in Palestine.16 • Between 1939 and 1945, 1,062 Palestinian tenant households in 48 localities were evicted from lands bought by Jews.17 Supporting Zionist Militias • Article 17 of the Mandate for Palestine (1922) states that “except for such purposes [for preserving peace and order], no military, naval or air forces shall be raised or maintained by the Administration.”18 • Establishment of Zionist militias such as Haganah, the Stern Gang, and Irgun,19 which were trained and equipped, and had colonies that were well fortified militarily.20 • During the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, the severity of the military retaliation to subdue the uprising resulted in 5,000 Palestinians killed, 15,000 wounded, and the exile, imprisonment, or assassination of the Palestinian leadership.21 • The imposition of severe sanctions on Palestinians, including the penalty of death for possessing small arms (such as a pistol or knife), put the Palestinians at a disadvantage.22 12 League of Nations, Mandate for Palestine (n 4), art 6; see also Geremy Forman and Alexander Kedar, ‘Colonialism, Colonization, and Land Law in Mandate Palestine: The Zor al-Zarqa and Barrat Qisarya Land Disputes in Historical Perspective’ (2003) 4(2) Theoretical Inquiries in Law 4, 491-539 <http://law.haifa.ac.il/images/documents/ ColonialismColonizationLand.pdf> accessed 3 October 2022. 13 Hussein Abu Hussein and Fiona McKay, Access Denied (Zed Books 2003), 67, cited in Ben White, Israeli Apartheid - A Beginners Guide (Pluto Press 2009), 13. 14 Table III, ‘Jewish Land Ownership in Palestine’ in Walter Lehn, The Jewish National Fund (Kegan Paul International 1988), 74. 15 Mohamed Seif El Nasr, ‘Palestine: How the Land was Lost’ (Your Middle East, 28 November 2015) <https:// yourmiddleeast.com/2015/11/28/palestine-how-the-land-was-lost/> accessed 3 October 2022. 16 For Jewish land ownership, see Lehn (n 14), 74. 17 See Charles Kamen, Little Common Ground: Arab Agriculture and Jewish Settlement in Palestine 1920–1948 (University of Pittsburgh Press,1991), 191. 18 League of Nations, Mandate for Palestine (n 4), art 17. 19 John Louis Peeke, ‘Jewish – Zionist Terrorism and the Establishment of Israel’ (Master’s Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School 1977), 19-103 <https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a047231.pdf> accessed 3 October 2022. 20 For further details, see: United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights, Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1988 Part I: 1917-1947, Prepared for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (30 June 1978) ST/SG/SER.F/1 <https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-ofthe-palestine-problem/part-i-1917-1947/> accessed 3 October 2022. 21 Alex Winder, ‘Great Arab Revolt, 1936-1939: A Popular Uprising Facing a Ruthless Repression’ (The Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question, 2017) <https://www.paljourneys.org/en/timeline/highlight/158/great-arabrevolt-1936-1939> accessed 3 October 2022. 22 Sabri Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel (Inea Bushnaq (tr), Monthly Review Press 1976), 10 [hereinafter Jiryis, Arabs in Israel]. During 1936–39, the British administration demolished some 5,000 Palestinian homes. Based on an average family size of six persons, an estimated 30,000 Palestinians were affected; see Yusef Rajab al-Ruday’i, The 1936 Arab Revolt in Palestine: A Military Study [Arabic], cited in Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, The Palestinian National Movement 1949-1993 (Institute for Palestine Studies and Oxford University Press 1999), 2. 4