In 1916, Daher Nassar, a Christian Palestinian farmer living south of Bethlehem, made a move considered more than unusual at the time. He bought a 42-hectare stretch of farmland on the slopes and valleys of Wadi Salem, and formally registered the purchase with the Ottoman authorities, who then ruled the region. A few years later, after transferring the title to his son, Nassar did something even more extraordinary. He re-registered the deed under each successive administration the British mandate, then the Jordanian government,