Mandated Landscape

British Imperial Rule in Palestine 1929-1948

Roza El-Eini

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781135772390
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In this ground-breaking authoritative study, a highly documented and incisive analysis is made of the galvanising changes wrought to the people and landscape of British Mandated Palestine (1929-1948). Using a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach, the book's award-winning author examines how the British imposed their rule, dominated by the clashing dualities of their Mandate obligations towards the Arabs and the Jews, and their own interests. The rulers' Empire-wide conceptions of the 'White man's burden' and preconceptions of the Holy Land were potent forces of change, influencing their policies.

Lucidly written, Mandated Landscape is also a rich source of information supported by numerous maps, tables and illustrations, and has 66 appendices, a considerable bibliography and extensive index. With a theoretical and historical backdrop, the ramifications of British rule are highlighted in their impact on town planning, agriculture, forestry, land, the partition plans and a case study, presenting discussions on such issues as development, ecological shock, law and the controversial division of village lands, as the British operated in a politically turbulent climate, often within their own administration.

This book is a major contribution to research on British Palestine and will interest those in Middle East, history, geography, development and colonial/postcolonial studies.

1
Town Planning and the Urban and Rural Landscapes

Let old Jerusalem stand firm, and new Jerusalem grow in grace!¹

INTRODUCTION:
THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The debate on colonial discourse and post-colonial theory further evolved from that of the 1970s, when ‘Third World’ writers began to ‘write back’. An important part of the post-colonial debate concerned the colonial urban landscape and its legacy. Hence, Jane M. Jacobs’ ‘geographies of imperialism’ highlighted that in Perth, Australia’s indigenous Aborigines saw their sacred Goonininup grounds given only a symbolic space. But how true is Zygmunt Bauman’s claim that ‘urban planning became the vehicle’ for the ‘perfect world that would know no misfits … [with] no unattended sites left to chance’?² Odile Goerg and Chantal Chanson-Jabeur examined different criteria for urbanism in its colonial context, questioning the use of ‘models’; whilst Christelle Robin saw at least three factors in the many ‘models’ of the ‘ville européenne’ urban morphologies that were supposedly transferred to the colonies: history, geography, culture. These combined to form a singularly colonial urban landscape.³

Writing on the colonial impact on urban centres, Anthony D. King took his cue partly from Janet Abu-Lughod’s commentary on the ‘transplant’ of the ‘modern city’, which produced a ‘dual city’ as a colonial legacy: ‘physically juxtaposed but architecturally and socially distinct’. King teased out the indicators that show that colonial urban centres do not readily fall into categories – conceptualising, for example, the role of cross-cultural phenomena, socio-spatial structure and analyses of policy, planning and resource distribution, as well as economic, social and urban form. Just as technological changes affected city forms, so too did they ‘revolutionise’ the ‘social and political structure’ of society. The main colonial function of an urban centre (administrative and so on) influenced both the centre itself and its rural surrounds.⁴ King goes a step further, and discusses the impact of regional planning and its significance in the export and transmission of colonial technology and capitalism in the formation and application of ‘dependency’ theories on urbanism and empire. He argues that the city can have a major role as the ‘spearhead of economic, political and cultural penetration’, changing the colonised society or territory.⁵

Robert J. Ross and Gerard J. Telkamp maintained that cities were ‘necessary evils’ to colonists as administrative and commercial centres;⁶ and A.J. Christopher emphasised the role of capitals and the hierarchy of power bases, which could distort a country’s economy, producing new trading and communications tangents.⁷ Tourism was also a by-product of the empires. A particularly potent force in colonial cities was urban planning, which in its crudest form produced racially segregated landscapes such as those in Singapore and South Africa, also expressed in the relative availability of services to the rulers and the ruled.⁸

Town planning in the British Empire originated with British statutory planning – beginning in England with the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909⁹ – and the evolving municipality system.¹⁰ Such planning became increasingly complex, encompassing garden cities, design, housing, and regional and national planning; much of which was developed in the inter-war period. Nathaniel Lichfield noted how ‘land-use and development planning evolved’, requiring ‘specific intervention’, and eventually leading to planned Government intervention.¹¹ The Town Planning Institute and the Royal Institute of British Architects lent further weight to town planning and its export to the Empire.

Precursors to town planning in British Mandated Palestine were present in the Ottoman Laws of 1877 and 1891, though these were largely limited to building and street construction.¹² Until 1921, there was no Town Planning Law in the country: ‘Town Planning, good, bad or indifferent did, however, take place before the [British] Occupation’. Under the 1877 Ottoman Law, municipalities were given certain powers regarding building construction and the widening and ‘arrangement of streets’. The 1891 Ottoman Law concerned the construction and alignment of streets, and provided for land in Municipal Areas to be taken over for new streets or to widen existing streets.¹³

The British enacted Palestine’s first Town Planning Ordinance in 1921, basing it on the English Town Planning Act of 1909. This was twice amended in 1922 and 1929, with a new Ordinance being passed in 1936 (amended in 1936, 1938, 1939 and 1941), and a further 65 sets of by-laws and five sets of rules.¹⁴ The general history of the Ordinances is discussed by M.D. Gouldman, as well as Joseph Fruchtman, who argued that British town planning in Palestine was an instrument of ‘social control’.¹⁵ The Ordinances’ history will not therefore be analysed. Several studies chart aspects of British town planning in Palestine: such as those by Benjamin Hyman on town planners during 1917–36; Fuchs on Austen St. Barbe Harrison, Chief Architect in the Mandatory’s PublicWorks Department (1923–37); and those on Haifa, by Gilbert Herbert and Silvina Sosnovsky;¹⁶ while Kark and Michal Oren-Nordheim, for example, look at some of the British colonial aspects of planning in Jerusalem.¹⁷

Other works are about the land, morphology and society in, and transformation of, Arab villages: see, for example, works by David H.K. Amiran, Y. Bar-Gal and A. Soffer, Moshe Brawer, David Grossman, Sami Hadawi,¹⁸ Ylana N. Miller, Susan Slymovics, and Ori Stendel.¹⁹ Many studies by Palestinians comment on and record Arab property in towns and villages during the Mandate: such as those by Salman Abu-Sitta, Aziz Dweik, Walid Khalidi, Izzat Tannous, Salim Tamari, and John Tleel;²⁰ also studies by institutes: notably Birzeit University’s Destroyed Village Series, the Institute of Jerusalem Studies, and Bethlehem’s Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. Furthermore, there are studies on particular towns and villages: for example, by ‘Abdullah Asad ‘Udi on Al Kababir, and Malik Hussein Salalhah on Beit Jann (in the Galilee).²¹

The period 1936–48 is, therefore, the main subject here, with the focus on town and regional planning, plan implementation, village development, city primacy, and post-war housing, and not on the town plans themselves. The aim is to examine the fundamental ideas and concepts behind British town planning in Palestine, and behind aspects of the urban and rural landscapes connected to British operations. Consequently, King’s more broad-ranging and analytical theories referred to above, on changes caused by colonial rule, are more notably used here.

TOWN PLANNING AND THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

Henry Kendall and Town Planning Policy

The abolition of the Central Town Planning Commission in 1936 in favour of District and Local Commissions, and the history of the 1936 Town Planning Ordinance, are well documented by Fruchtman.²² Palestine experienced ‘rapid urban development’ due to increased Jewish immigration after the Nazi rise to power in Germany in 1933 (see, Appendix 5). In 1936, Henry Kendall was therefore appointed as Palestine’s first full-time Town Planning Adviser, replacing Clifford Holliday, who had been Adviser since 1922.²³

Kendall remained Palestine’s Town Planning Adviser to the end of the Mandate, while also encouraging and being involved with town planning in Cyprus and Malta. From the outset, he strove to frame town planning within its proper technical context, insisted on defining such planning terms as ‘amenities’ (‘clear air to breathe … the sight of beautiful things …’), and instigated the Town Planning Adviser’s Annual Reports in 1936.²⁴ He lectured architects on their ‘responsibility to posterity’, even calling on Henry W. Longfellow: ‘Ah to build, to build./That is the noblest art of all arts’.²⁵ Kendall sent the District Commissioners a memorandum on planning objectives concerning zoning, public services, and other related matters, as expressed in the Town Planning Ordinance of 1936 (see, Table 3). In fact, by 1936, town planning was already well established in Palestine, with the number of Planning Areas (excluding Regional Areas) rising from ten in 1930, to 31 in 1939, and 40 in 1948 (see, Table 4 and Map 2). The Ordinance aimed to bring the whole country under statutory planning through decentralisation. It was intended to give greater District and local involvement in planning, through the elimination of the Central Town Planning Commission, hence the multiplication of town-planning activities after its enactment (see, Table 5).²⁶

Table 3. Matters to Be Dealt with in a Town Planning Scheme, According to the Town Planning Ordinance, 1936

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Outline Scheme: Section 12

1. Every Local Commission shall submit to the District Commission, within such time as may be prescribed by the District Commission, an outline town planning scheme in respect of all lands within a town planning area, with the general object of securing proper conditions of health, sanitation and communication, and amenity and convenience in connection with the laying out and use of the land.
2. Without prejudice to the powers of the Local Commission under this Ordinance, every scheme to which this section applies shall make provision for all or any of the following matters, as may be prescribed by the District Commission:
   1. construction of new roads and streets, and the construction, diversion, widening, alteration and stopping up of existing roads, main roads, streets and communications;
   2. the establishment of building lines and set-backs;
   3. drainage, including sewerage;
   4. water supply;
   5. the limitation of zones within which special trades and industries may or may not be carried on, or which are reserved exclusively for residential or other purposes;
   6. the imposition of conditions and restrictions in regard to the open space to be maintained about buildings and the particular height and character of buildings to be allowed in specified areas;
   7. the demarcation of public and private open spaces and nature reserves;
   8. the reservation of land as sites...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Maps
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Note on Spelling of Names
• Currency and Measures
• Abbreviations
• Glossary
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Town Planning and the Urban and Rural Landscapes
• 2. Agriculture
• 3. Forestry
• 4. Land
• 5. The Partition Plans
• 6. The Shephelah: A Case Study
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index