Challenging the ‘desert brought to bloom’ narrative
Historical archives show that Palestine was far from a desert. Strategic settlement patterns and unequal land distribution challenge the familiar ‘making the desert bloom’ narrative
Published: 05:02 PM,Feb 05,2026 | EDITED : 09:02 PM,Feb 05,2026
Many competing narratives surround the land of Palestine, its people, history and culture. Some narratives seek to reinforce the bond of indigenous Palestinians to their land, while others aim to blur the picture and weaken the tie. When those with more power adopt a certain narrative, it can take on a life of its own, revise history and perhaps even shape the future.
One such narrative is that which claims that Jewish newcomers to Palestine ‘made the desert bloom’. The story goes that when (mostly European) Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they found a barren, desolate land, which they quickly managed to turn green, thanks to European science and technology.
The contribution of Jewish settlers to agriculture in Palestine is therefore often highlighted in this narrative, in order to legitimise their presence on the land.
There are several layers to this claim, as well as many angles from which it could be challenged. One of these angles may be to question the portrayal of the land of Palestine as a ‘desert’ in the first place.
Another could be to expose how this claim essentially aligns with other run-of-the-mill colonialist imaginaries of conquered lands.
Yet another angle, which is the one proposed here, is to confront this ‘making-the-desert-bloom’ narrative by digging deep into the archives and showing that Jewish immigrants continuously and strategically settled in territories that have historically been the most fertile, cultivated and densely populated in Palestine, long before their arrival.
British archival materials can be helpful in this regard, especially official documents describing the land of Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s, at the peak of tensions between incoming Jewish immigrants and indigenous Palestinians.
One such document is the infamous Peel Report (1937), which officially proposed, for the first time, the partition of Palestine into two countries, one ‘Arab’ and another ‘Jewish’. The report recounts that its own suggested partition plan – which de facto privileges Jewish settlers – could prove to be contentious. This is because, according to the proposed division of lands, indigenous Palestinians would be relegated to the highlands of Palestine, which are described as ‘for the most part barren’.
About six months following this publication, the Woodhead Report (1938), which investigated the practical possibilities of the partition plan, was published. This report too explained that a main argument against partition was ‘the fact that, under any plan of partition (...) the greater part of the Arab wealth of Palestine is necessarily left outside the Arab State (...); that state is therefore found to be singularly lacking both in natural resources, in created assets, and in inherited wealth, and is likely to remain a very poor country”.
Perhaps even more tellingly, the Woodhead Report at one point cites an earlier British-led document submitted in 1937 to the Council of the League of Nations, the precursor organisation to the United Nations.
The report was presented by the Permanent Mandates Commission to the Council’s 32nd extraordinary session. Among its conclusions, it recommended that in any solution scheme in Palestine ‘the areas allotted to the Jews should be sufficiently extensive, fertile and well situated from the point of view of communications by sea and land to be capable of intensive economic development, and consequently of dense and rapid settlement.’
By contrast, the said report advised that indigenous Palestinians should, as much as possible, not be deprived of places that held sentimental and religious value.
All of these statements point to the discrepancy in land quality distribution between Jewish settlers, on the one hand, and indigenous Palestinians, on the other. They also shed light on the deliberate and strategic inequity adopted by the powers that be in allocating land assets.