The Ottoman Land Code and Palestine's Lost Peasantry

This episode dives into the 1858 Ottoman Land Code, a seemingly bureaucratic reform that reshaped Palestine's rural landscape and sowed seeds of dispossession. Lucas and Luna explore how the code's requirement for land registration clashed with traditional communal ownership, leading wealthy urban elites and foreign investors to accumulate vast estates while peasant farmers (fellahin) lost their ancestral plots. They discuss figures like the Surrock family, who bought land from the Ottoman sultan, and the role of the Jewish National Fund in later land purchases. The episode touches on the 1858 law's unintended consequences—creating absentee landlordism, fueling debt among fellahin, and setting the stage for the Zionist land acquisition that would intensify during the British Mandate. It contrasts the Ottoman system of 'miri' (state-owned) land with European notions of private property, and explains how legal loopholes like 'mahlul' (unclaimed land) were exploited. The conversation also examines the 1875 Law of Immatriculation and the rise of the 'effendi' class, providing a nuanced look at how Ottoman reforms inadvertently accelerated the transformation of Palestine's agrarian society.

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