Settler Colonial Demographics. A Study of the Consequences of Zionist Land Purchases and Immigration during the British Mandate in Palestine

Abstract

The settler colonial framework provides Palestine Studies with a useful tool; opening new lines of inquiry and leading to new fields of study. This thesis examines the impact of the Zionist settlement policy on rural Palestine during the Mandatory period. Through a demographic analysis the thesis argues that the displacement of these peasants was the result of an intentional transfer policy by the Jewish community. Transfer, as Nur Masalha has already shown, constituted an important part of the overall Zionist ideology and attitude towards the local population. This thesis argues that the displacements and removal of the indigenous population started before the Nakba, including the British Mandate period inside the settler colonial need of becoming a demographic majority in the land under dispute. Zionist historiography argues that Zionists did not interfere in the daily life of the Palestinians and stresses the profitable aspects of Jewish immigration. This thesis, using settler colonial theories, challenges this historiography and proposes new tools to deal with other settler colonial cases around the world. This thesis is based on four demographic sources used during the British Mandate to determine the consequences of land purchases and immigration in the Haifa, Nazareth, Jenin and Nablus sub-districts during that period: the 1922 Census, the 1931 Census, the Village Statistics 1938 and the Village Statistics 1945. The analysis of the growth rates of all the communities and villages will illustrate the consequences of the Zionist settler colonial project. This thesis discusses the replacement of population and the importance of population, access to land and immigration trends for the Zionist settler colonial enterprise on their way to becoming the demographic majority on the land of the Historical Palestine.