"The Visit of the American Jewish Committee to Palestine", Letters from Ilyas Kusa to Majed Fahum, Farid Wajdy at-Tabary, and Antonio Farghany, June 1957

Dated June 19, 1957, these printed letters in Arabic were sent from Ilyas Kusa to Majed al-Fahum, Farid Wajdy at-Tabary, and Antonio Farghany regarding the visit of the American Jewish Committee to Palestine to study the situation of Palestinians in general and the situation of Muslims, Druze, and Roman Catholics under Israeli rule. Enclosed to these letters is Kusa's address to the Committee which includes the following information: about 1,250,000 dunams of land were seized from Palestinian farmers and the compensation offered by the Israeli government is considerably less than the annual yield of the land. The majority of Palestinians live in areas under Israeli Military Rule which limits their freedom of movement, the education standard of Palestinians is very low, and they are hardly represented in government departments. And even though Arabs pay the same taxes and imposts to the same extent as the Jews, they are treated as second-class citizens and are denied the right to administer and manage their Waqf properties.