Zionist Settlers and the English Private Trust in Mandate Palestine

Abstract

The basic colonial encounter involved a colonizing power and colonized locals. Some colonial situations were more complex, involving a third element: settlers of nonlocal stock originating in an ethnos, or nation, different than that with which the colonizer was identified. Two prominent examples from the annals of the British Empire are the French inhabitants of Nouvelle France after France ceded it to the British in 1763, and the Dutch inhabitants of the Cape Colony after the British conquest of 1806. The British typically permitted such settler populations to retain at least parts of the laws to which they were accustomed, which laws were often based on the laws of the settlers' jurisdiction of origin. As regards settler use of English law, the English sometimes provided for the application of parts of it to non-British settlers, while blocking such settlers' attempts to use other parts. The part of English law most commonly applied to non-British colonial subjects, both settlers and natives, was commercial law, in order to facilitate commerce between different parts of the Empire. The parts least commonly applied to such inhabitants were family law, land law, and the law of inheritance.

Loyal Opposition: Minorities and State Law

“…These Jews actively sought to have members of their community appointed as judges; they also pressured the British to import parts of English law to Palestine, such as the law of trusts, and employed this imported law to advance Jewish objectives. For instance, they used trusts to bypass British regulations that sought to prevent Jews from buying Arab land (Hofri-Winogradow 2012).…”