The present article aims to uncover the different meanings attached to land ownership in Palestine during the late Ottoman and British Mandate eras and to show how a ‘modern’ understanding of ownership was imposed on the local population, particularly the fellahin (peasants), without a consideration of their needs and traditions. Many widespread claims are challenged, first and foremost the one according to which, at the time of the partition of Palestine (1947), ‘over 70 percent’ of it did not ‘legally’ belong to the local Arab majority, but to the British Mandate power, an assumption that has had political, cultural and social ramifications that have lasted until the present day.