Adonis Diaries

Memoirs of a Zionist Realtor who sold lands to Jewish Funds: Youssef Nehmani

The original Hebrew title is “Youssef Nehmani: The Man of Galilee“.  The diary chapter spans the period 1935-1949, and the letters cover the period from 1912 to 1964.

Youssef Nehmani was born in Russia in 1891 and immigrated to Palestine in 1907. He worked in the vignard in Jerusalem, in the colony of Zakhroun Yaacov, and got engaged in the party of Bou Aali Tessyoun (Zion workers).

Many Palestinians, particularly large landlord Lebanese who owned vast properties in north Palestine, sold their lands to Zionists and Jewish organization, decades before the UN decided to partition Palestine. The total private land that the Zionist Funds managed to acquire was 5.7% of Palestine, and yet the UN gave the minority Jews 53% of Palestine in 1947!

What follows is an account that the Palestinian peasants hardly sold their properties: It is the foreign landowners such as the feudal families in Lebanon and Syria who sold the most fertile lands to the Zionist Funds.

A few sources are available, but no serious extensive research studies have been conducted, strong with documents, on the mechanism of selling lands to Jewish settlers…

There are the books published in English such as of Saleh Massoud Abu Basir “The struggle (Jihad) of Palestinian people, 1968”; Hind Amine Badiri “Palestinian Lands, 1998”; Yaacoub Khoury “Arab properties and the tied up money in Palestine”; Sami Hannawi…Zionist sources in Arabic are almost inexistent, save Jacques Cato “The problem of land in the Palestinian/Israeli cause (1917-1990)”; Tamar Goujansky “Development of capitalism in Palestine, 1987”

Sources mention that Zionist Organizations bought till 1948 over two million donom, and barely 70 thousand donom from private Palestinian peasants.

In the early 1920, the Jewish settlers used cavalry to protect their colonies (Hayrden in Galilee)from the bedouin of Houran who descended on the colonies such as Dagania in Tiberias, and these bedouin were called “Arab”, instead of “E3rab”. The Palestinian peasants refrained from attacking the Jewish colonies in north Palestine until much later, as the British mandated power started waves of harassment against the Palestinian people.

The author wrote that the Jewish Yishouf started transforming their German rifles to be compatible with Turkish ammunition, and that “the daily life among the Jews was poisoned because they could not withstand one another, and work was totally disorganized in the colonies”.

In 1911, Youssef joined the  Hashomer organization (the Guardian) till 1920 and relied the Hebrew cavalry in Galillee. He was successful in Real Estates and sold many properties to Israel National Fund (Hakirn Hakimet Israel).

Youssef Nehmani was appointed manager of the Israel National Fund for East Galili region (Hula, north of Bissan, up to the environ of Safad). Nehmani could not grasp the reason why Ben Gurion was not hot in buying more lands. Actually, Ben Gurion had decided to conquer these lands by force, and free of charge, after the Bell Paper suggested the partition of Palestine in 1937.

Nehmani had tight connections with Palestinian authority figures such as Khalil Francis, Bishop Akil (right hand of Lebanese Patriarch), Elias Nammour from Beirut, Abed Hussein Bezi (from Bent Jbeil, south Lebanon), abed Ghani Mardini and Na3im Choukeir (from Meiss Jabal, south Lebanon), Nassib Ghabriel (from Hasbaya, south-east Lebanon), Ali Abdallah, Khalil Farhat, and 3adel Badir…who sold their properties to him…

In late April 1997, the Nazareth daily “Fasl Makal” listed the Palestinian landlords who sold their properties to Jews between 1918 to 1945, and based on British archives. You have Muhammad Taher Husseini (father of Amine Husseini), Moussa Kazem Husseini, Moussa Alami, Ragheb Nashashibi, Ibrahim Fahou, Youssef Fahoum, Toufic Fahoum, Yacoob Ghoussein, family of Rock, Awni Abd Hadi (leader of the Independence Party and who sold the lands in Wadi Hawareth (3amik Hawfar), Judge Kanaan…and all these people were the leading Palestinian politicians before the Nakba of 1948.

Nehmani relates how he bought Hrawi Mountain and the lands in the town of 3adaissi (south Lebanon), Jahoula, and Buwaysieh in 1938, and the lands in Meiss Jabal, Muteleh, Manara, malikeyeh and Awlam in 1945…

He bought Kherbet Sobh from Elias Katit where the two colonies of Hanita and Yaalon were settled. The Emir of the “Arab” Faghour (bedouin) sold the lands of the village Khassass in 1939, where the terrorist Zionist Hagana committed genocide in 1947.

Nehmani bought lands from the family of Farhat in 1944, Ahmad Al Assaad, Mahmoud Al Assaad, and Salib Sobh (from Safad), Kamel Hussein, Ahmad Mardini, and Zaki Rokabi in the village of Kyam al Walid. Kamel Hussein, leader of the tribe Ghawarina sold properties in Hula.

The Lebanese feudal lord, Khaled Chehab, had very strong ties with the Zionist movement and sold his properties in the village of Ghabissieh.

The Lebanese landlords of Sursok, Salam, Tayan, Tuweini, Khoury, Biham, Kabbani, Omran, Sabbagh, Keir Dine Ahdab,…sold the Zionist Funds the most fertile lands.

The same goes to famous Syrian families who owned vast fertile lands in Palestine…These feudal landlords sold prior to election campaigns and they ruled Lebanon and Syria for many decades, and still bear heavy influence in the social/political structure.

The Palestinian peasants barely sold his properties, and the few ones who did were executed during the first Palestinian Intifada of 1935-38.  The foreign lanlords were living away from Palestine and they could not be reached for exactions.

The total private land that the Zionist Funds managed to acquire was 5.7% of Palestine, and yet the UN gave the Zionist State 53% of Palestine in 1947!

Note 1: Review was published by Sakr abu Fakhr in the Lebanese Daily Al Safir.  The book was assembled and published by Youssef Faytz in Hebrew in 1969, and translated in Arabic byElias Shoufani in 2010.

Note 2: Below is the Arabic list of the Lebanese and Syrian landlords who sold their vast properties to the Zionist Funds, along with the size of the lands and when, as published by the daily Al Safir: