Fordham Center for Jewish Studies hosted a lecture on the Palestine Economic Corporation’s (PEC) investments in Mandatory Palestine on the Lincoln Center campus Nov. 13. The lecture presented the argument that the PEC facilitated the growth of a capitalist economy while contributing to economic inequality, discrimination and resource exploitation.
Mandatory Palestine was a British-controlled administrative territory that existed from 1920 until the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Jacob Beckert, a short-term fellow in the Fordham-New York Public Library (NYPL) Fellowship in Jewish Studies, delivered the lecture.
According to Beckert, the PEC was a transnational development corporation that invested in valuable resources, modernizing the economy and expanding Jewish settlements in British-controlled Palestine in the 1920s’s and 30s’s. While the PEC claimed to take an apolitical stance and that its developments could improve cooperation between Jewish settlers and Arab communities, Beckert explained that they largely exacerbated existing political tensions.
Beckert said that, prior to their involvement, Jewish expansion in the region had been at a standstill due to mounting debt and a recession. Jewish settlements no longer had the funds to expand further, prompting the PEC’s introduction of long-term lending for agriculture and mortgages. This was critical to the resumption of Jewish expansion, but Beckert said that the benefits remained one-sided as Arab Palestinians were denied access to credit.
During development, residents of the region were forced to relocate. While the single Jewish community was given alternate plans for relocation, the Arab communities were not, displaying the ongoing inequality between communities.
Beckert said rising antisemitism and the introduction of the Johnson Act of 1924, which limited Jewish immigration to the United States through quotas, further increased the desire for Jewish solidarity and the establishment of settlements abroad. Thus, Beckert said, the PEC framed their work as being, in part, a “humanitarian endeavor.”
“The very goal that they came in was to allow more Jews to settle in Palestine, to improve the Jewish economy. So they see no problem in that this is exclusively a Jewish system,” Beckert said. “(Credit) completely transforms the way the economy function(s), given almost every Jewish agricultural institution in the country applies for these loans … Credit ends up being really, really critical to the ways modern economies function.”
Beckert compared the exclusionary credit system in Palestine with redlining in New York City, pointing to its lasting economic consequences. Redlining is the systemic denial of loans and funds to homeowners in neighborhoods populated by communities of color. This process, which started during the Great Depression, discriminated against Black and immigrant residents and solidified segregation in New York City through economic manipulation.
“We have a similar history in the United States about some groups getting access to credit and some not,” Beckert said. “We have not begun to study the ramifications of this difference in that credit access in Palestine, but it is significant.”
According to Beckert, the PEC also funded mining for the extremely valuable mineral potash in the Dead Sea, becoming the largest shareholder in potash mining through an exclusive contract after providing the startup capital.
Beckert also described the PEC’s major construction and development of Haifa Bay, which he said was seen as the “city of the future” and “industrial center of the region.” During development, residents of the region were forced to relocate. While the single Jewish community was given alternate plans for relocation, the Arab communities were not, displaying the ongoing inequality between communities.
“This becomes a major source of consternation for Arabs in the Mandate, the idea of loss of land,” Beckert said. “This seemed like a normal capitalist process to the leaders of the PEC, but to the Arabs, who felt this attachment to the land, who had been there for generations and who were forced off without any compensation, this became a major source of political conflict.”
Further, Beckert cited a water well at Wadi al-Hawarith as an example of the inequitable distribution of resources between Jewish and Arab communities. Although the well was constructed in an Arab community, the water was pumped south to a Jewish settlement in Kfar Brandeis.
“Later, this (Arab) community would also be expelled from the land,” Beckert said. “This becomes actually one of, if not the largest, cause célèbre among Arabs in the area. … The PEC wasn’t involved in that expulsion, but they do have a well right there that is not giving resources to them.”
There were also significant wage disparities between Jews and Arabs during the period of PEC development, according to Beckert. Jewish laborers were paid 10 shillings for each day of work in addition to a living stipend, while Arab laborers were only paid three shillings per day.
The event was part of the Fordham-NYPL Lecture Series in Jewish Studies. Upcoming events in the series include Ilan Stavans’ “Notes on Hispanic Antisemitism” on Dec. 4 at 6 p.m.
