Talk:Al-Jammama

Ruhama

I believe the statement The agricultural settlement of Ruchama[sic] was established in 1944 on village land. is false. The lands of Ruhama had been purchased by Jewish organizations, and therefore, were no longer part of Jammama since Jammama (or any other village for that matter) had the jurisdiction over its lands, and was not the municipal/local authority. I could provide sources about Ruhama's purchase if necessary. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The statement is sourced as given; I don´t know more of the story behind it except to say that the land-issue in the Bersheba -district seems to be very messy, as the British Mandate Gov. did not seem to have a full knowledge of Bedouin rights. Hadawi mentions it on p.35 and p.36, in the Village Statistics, 1945. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:34, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

That's gliding over to the issue of "on the lands of ..." which I also have a serious problem with, but this is not the place for such a discussion. What I am talking about is the specific case of Ruhama, the lands of which were legally purchased long before 1948 and Israeli independence. As you know, I do not have access to the original source. What exactly does it say? If it's part of a larger index of what Jewish localities are locates near/"on the lands of" which Arab villages, then I daresay that it's not enough to make such a problematic assertion. A full quote from the source would be appreciated, and, again, if it says something that directly contradicts what I am saying, I'll be happy to look for sources about the purchase of Ruhama. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 23:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry: I in no way tried to avoid the issue. I have the source (Khalidi, 1992,(English-version)). Now, when Khalidi writes about the different villages, one after the other, he does so with a fixed set-up, starting with location, land ownership, population, number of houses, etc. Then larger text-areas, following normally these standard headings:

=X before 1948=

=Occupation and Depopulation=

=Israeli settlements on Village Lands=

=The Village today=

For Jammama (text at p.73 & 74), he writes (p.73) under "Land ownership and use in 1944/45: n.a." That is: "not available".

Under the "Israeli settlements on Village Lands"-heading (p.74), he writes (and these are the exact words: "The agricultural settlement of Ruchama (122100) was established in 1944 on village lands." And that is all. I assume the numbers "122100" -refers to some map--I haven´t got that far, yet.

Khalidi has a list over many of the Israeli settlements in the Appendix, but this list only gives which kibbutz-group the settlement is/was affiliated with, and under Beersheva-district only Urim is mentioned. Hope this helps. Having said that; I wonder how they could buy the land in 1944...when the Government apparently did not know who it belonged to? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 00:15, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I have done some very basic reading and have found out that the lands of Ruhama were in fact purchased in the area of Jammama as early as 1911! by a Russian Zionist group called She'erit Israel.(HaReuveni 1999, p. 866) This makes sense, as during my research about Yosef Lishansky, I found out that his group guarded Ruhama in the World War I period. In any case, Ruhama was abandoned at the start of the Arab Revolt in 1936, and during the same year the JNF bought its lands from the previous owners. In 1944 it was resettled.(HaReuveni 1999, p. 866)

In other words, in 1944 Ruhama was established on JNF lands, although Khalidi might not be necessarily wrong because some lists have a "Jewish ownership" and "Arab ownership" column for the same village even in cases where these were clearly separate villages.

More information on Ruhama from Kark, Ruth: History of the Pioneer Settlement in the Negev, p. 44 (loose translation, some parts omitted):

The only Jewish land purchase in the Beersheba District was that of Jammama, by Hakhsharat HaYishuv for an organization called She'erit Yisrael from Moscow in 1911. The land area was 6,000 dunams and it was purchased for 13 francs per dunam from the Sheikh Ali, head of Atawana(sp?) tribe. There was difficulty in approving the purchase because the lands were not registered, but the Bedouins eventually registered it, they also registered the purchased land in the name of Jews who were Turkish subjects.

The book has 2 more pages of information about Ruhama from 1911 to 1917. On pages 69 to 73 Kark talks about Ruhama between 1917 and 1936 (the Ottoman authorities expelled the Jews of Ruhama in 1917). Apparently it was resettled in December 1943, not 1944, but that's cosmetic. Apparently also, the amount of land purchased by JNF, the company Gan Shlomo, and others in Ruhama, grew significantly as can be seen by maps from 1943 and 1947, but I'll probably have to read half the book to make sense of how and when this happened. However, there can be no doubt that no land was taken without payment/other form of consent from the owners. Moreover, if we don't know who owned part of the land, then it couldn't have belonged to Jammama or any other village, could it?

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 01:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

<outdent>That is interesting information, and it certainly belong in the Ruhama-article (indeed, I see much of it is already there.) As to ownership: there is a difference between authorities knowing...and the locals, obviously (as your story tells). I have no sources myself on land-sales. But: if people bought some land, and payed for it, it does not follow that they did not also take some land. You basically have to see if Ruhama land expanded in 1948. That is what happened to lots of Jewish settlements further north: they settled on some bought land, and then got tons "for free" in 1948. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 03:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about 1948, but Khalidi talks specifically about 1944 (also strange that it goes into the 1948 and after section, but that's unimportant). I suggest changing the text to say that some of Jammama's lands were purchased by Zionists from Russia in 1911 to found Ruhama, and that Ruhama was depopulated and resettled twice after that (this is not disputed). The Khalidi text should be removed as it appears to contradicts this information, and does not offer enough insight to ascertain what he actually meant.

On a side note, AFAIK Jammama was a Bedouin village. That should be in the lead. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 11:02, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, (a minor point): the information does not go into a "1948 and after section" in Khalidi (there really is no such section, see above). It is perfectly common for Khalidi to mention pre-1948 Jewish settlements in the "Israeli settlements on Village Lands"- section...as these (sometimes older) settlements took over the village land. In Umm Khalid we have under the exact same heading...Netanya. For the very good reason that Umm Khalid-land today is a part of Netanya. (And I assume Netanya-land was honestly bought back in 1929, when it was first settled).

As for removing the Khalidi-quote: absolutely not. If there is contradictary information (from RS, which I understand that it is); then take that into the article. That is what I have done, say, in Ayn Ghazal / Ein Ayala: Morris writes that Ein Ayala is on Ayn Ghazal land, while Khalidi say not! I have put *both* into the articles.

We also really should get an idea as to *what* is disputed? Lets say that Zionist bought land in 1911, and this is undisputed; the question remain: Did they take over more land after 1948? Does anyone know? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:34, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

1. The reason I want to remove the Khalidi information isn't that I question the reliability of the source; rather, it's that the source does not have enough information and any interpretation of the 1 line that Khalidi writes is WP:OR. Khalidi does not say anything about whether the land was legally purchased or not, therefore it is likely that he actually means the same thing that other sources write, but your interpretation is that the lands were seized. The simply statement of "was founded on village land" is insufficient information for the article as well.
2. About 1948, again I'm not sure why you keep bringing this up. We are discussion the year 1944, and the period before that. I never said anything about 1948 (other than the comment about the section title) and neither did Khalidi, as far as I can tell.

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:25, 8 April 2010 (UTC)