-- On 11 Apr 2003 at 14:23, Ken Brown wrote:
In some districts but not all. Apparently - I'm no expert & just relaying info from a friend who at least has the advantage of being able to speak Arabic and who keeps up with Arab news media - quite large parts of the agricultural sector are all but feudal. Large farms or whole villages or counties are organised on tribal or clan lines, sometimes resembling the caste systems of India, with landowners coming from one group (usually in recent years in cahoots with the Ba'athists of course) and other clans being landless peasants who get work as labourers.
They are not landowners, at least not as westerners understand owning land The Sheiks are as hostile to private property rights as commies or Baathists. In Palestine, when the British tried to register land ownership, the people you describe as landlords engaged in armed resistance. Hence the Israeli argument that they are not dispossessing Palestinians, it is all state property, on which Palestinians happen to be illegally squatting. The Israelis intepreted what you are calling landowners as politically controlling people residing on state owned land. The British interpreted them as politically controlling small private landowners. Much truth in both these interpretations. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG VTMuzOnpoG1p472PapPi1XoJv53GB9odRkOU7Vbr 47If06Af2zrBtY/1yqg+88xHT0zPZ6DvfRZ5V6ns2