Exogenous intervention in land ownership began with few court judgments prior to the weighty Land Code in 1858; but it was especially this law which officially overturned the status quo by permitting registration of cultivated land in the names of non-cultivators. This changed the rules of the game for the peasantry in Palestine. Informally, yet practically, peasants had been the de facto owners of almost all cultivated lands in Palestine for generations. Following the landmark intervention of 1858, non-peasants seized the opportunity to acquire economic assets. They purchased and confiscated peasant lands or manipulated registration of peasant lands into their own names, and the peasants often became their tenants. The additional purchase of lands by Zionist settlers in latter years, compounded by rural demographic growth, intensified this pressure. By 1930, three-quarters of Arab peasants in Palestine cultivated lands they no longer formally owned, while others were pushed to migrate to cities.

在 1858 年有分量的《土地法》之前，很少有法院判决就开始对土地所有权进行外源性干预；尤其是这部法律，正式颠覆了现状，允许以非耕者的名义登记耕地。这改变了巴勒斯坦农民的游戏规则。非正式但实际上，农民几代以来一直是巴勒斯坦几乎所有耕地的实际所有者。在 1858 年具有里程碑意义的干预之后，非农民抓住了获得经济资产的机会。他们收买、没收农地，或以自己的名义操纵农地登记，农民往往成为他们的佃户。犹太复国主义定居者在晚年额外购买土地，再加上农村人口增长，加剧了这种压力。到 1930 年，巴勒斯坦四分之三的阿拉伯农民耕种了他们不再正式拥有的耕地，而其他人则被迫迁移到城市。