Palestinian Fellahin Tobacco ‘Smuggling’ Under Late Ottoman, British, and Israeli Rule

Set in Palestine under late Ottoman, British, and Israeli rule, this chapter discusses how independent sale, or so-called smuggling, functioned as an economic strategy of fellahin peasant tobacco-growing households against their unfair treatment by local and international companies and colonial governments. Fellahin understood the sale of leaf tobacco as their natural right and refused to recognise the legitimacy of the law, which prohibited the independent sale and even personal consumption of a grower’s own tobacco crop. They vehemently contested the word ‘smuggling’ and their characterisation as ‘smugglers.’ Instead, they struggled to defend their right to sell their tobacco, organising locally and nationally, and enlisting nationalist tropes to boost their sales. They created niche markets for their crop and marketed it themselves along established routes, building a nationwide reputation. Managing benefit and risk at the household level, this use of subterfuge, denial, and legal loopholes demonstrates the resourcefulness and flexibility of peasants striving to survive. Moreover, their acts of economic defiance revealed the internal contradiction between governments’ liberal stated policies and their highly regulated practices.