| Description | The Citrus Marketing Board for Palestine was established in 1948 just before the end of the Mandate; on the creation of the State of Israel the name of the Board was changed to the Citrus Marketing Board of Israel. The Board was reformed in 1991 and from that date has been prohibited from direct marketing.
This correspondence centres on the claim of numerous Palestinians active in the citrus industry in Palestine in 1948 regarding the honouring of cheques drawn on Barclays Bank, Jaffa by the Palestine Citrus Marketing Board. The correspondence was executed on behalf of various Palestinians including Said Beidas and the Azar and Araktingi families by lawyers George E. Berouti of Beirut and Mr. H.[Harold] P. Styring of Croydon.
Pal 2b contains
a) Correspondence between Berouti and Styring, including a list of Arab holders of Citrus Marketing Board cheques, copies of the correspondence between Styring and the Colonial Office. Letters dated between 20/09/1965 and 28/07/1972, the bulk dating from 1966. Power of attorney granted to Berouti and Styring by the Azar family dated 07/01/1966.
b) Correspondence between Said M. Beidas (Baidas/Baydas) and Styring dated 1958-1966, a letter from Styring to Dr. Jamal Nasir a London lawyer seeking his views on the question, with Jamal Nasir's reply dated 1966, letters from Styring to Ali Bey Dajani and a handwritten reply, with a covering letter from the general manager of the Arab Bank in Amman, dated 1966, and copies of two letters from Said Beidas to Major Harry Biggs dated 20/02 1958 and 22/08/1955 respectively, plus a copy of a letter from R.G. Dyson, Assistant General manager of Barclays Bank D.C.O. to Said Beidas dated 07/12/1955 stating that "the Local Director [of the Bank] in Israel informs us that the Citrus Marketing Order and all Orders made thereunder were repealed by the Israel Authorities and that he is precluded from giving you [Beidas] any information as regards the account of the Citrus Marketing Board maintained with our Jaffa Branch".
c) Photocopy of a letter dated 15/04/1948 sent to Said Beidas and Francois Gelat of Jaffa by G.D. Patron on behalf of the Government of Palestine regarding the accounts of the Citrus Boards.
d) Copy of a letter from W.M. Bradley, Chairman of the Citrus Marketing Board to Beidas and F. Gelat (representing the Arab Sector of the Citrus Industry) and I. Rekach and Y. Chorin, representing the Jewish sector, dated. 30/04/1948. [Yehuda Chorin wrote a book entitled "Citrus in Israel", published in Tel Aviv, Israel Press in 1966 (142 p.)]
e) Photocopies of five cheques made out to Arab citrus growers and endorsed by Beidas (all five dated 04/1948)
Said Beidas (spelling his name Baidas) was a signatory to the "Memorandum submitted to the Government of the United States of America by the Jaffa and Districts Inhabitants Council, Beirut, 11 April 1949", asking for Arab Palestinian refugees to be permitted to return to their former homes and for the restitution of property claimed to be sequestered after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Memorandum reprinted in the Journal of Palestine Studies, 1989.
Note: Photocopy of Fischbach, Michael R. 'Records of dispossession: Palestinian refugee property and the Arab-Israeli confict' Institute of Palestine Studies Series, Columbia University Press, 2003. On file - available to be consulted with archive. |
| Admin History | The correspondence almost certainly donated to the Centre for Arab Gulf Studies (later Arab World Documentation Unit) by Leila Mantoura (born c. 1928, died 27/04/2000), who donated a large number of books and documents to the Centre in the 1990s. Leila Mantoura was the daughter of the well-known Palestinian scholar Tewfik Canaan (24 September 1882 - 15 January 1964) and H.P. Styring states in a letter of 26/02/1958 to Said Baydas that he is "the son-in-law of Tewfik Canaan". Styring also states in the same letter that he "was Major Biggs's deputy in Palestine and am fully informed of the situation which arose in 1947, also after that date I represented the Arab interests in enemy property at the Colonial Office..." |