1936–1937 British investigation in Mandatory Palestine
Report of the Palestine Royal Commission
Peel Commission Partition Plan, July 1937. Areas enclosed within the red line were part of the proposed Jewish state. The black line with hatched area represents an "enclave" (or "corridor") that was proposed as an international zone to remain under British control and administration, in recognition of Jerusalem's religious and historical importance to Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
On 7 July 1937, the commission published a report that, for the first time, stated that the League of NationsMandate had become unworkable and recommended partition.[1] The British cabinet endorsed the Partition plan in principle, but requested more information.[2] Following the publication, in 1938 the Woodhead Commission was appointed to examine it in detail and recommend an actual partition plan.
The Arabs opposed the partition plan and condemned it unanimously.[3] The Arab Higher Committee opposed the idea of a Jewish state[4] and called for an independent state of Palestine, "with protection of all legitimate Jewish and other minority rights and safeguarding of reasonable British interests".[5] They also demanded cessation of all Jewish immigration and land purchase.[4] They argued that the creation of a Jewish state and lack of independent Palestine was a betrayal of the word given by Britain.[2][6]
The Zionist leadership was bitterly divided over the plan.[4] In a resolution adopted at the 1937 Zionist Congress, the delegates rejected the specific partition plan. Yet the principle of partition is generally thought to have been "accepted" or "not rejected outright" by any major faction: the delegates empowered the leadership to pursue future negotiations.[4][7][8][9] The Jewish Agency Council later attached a request that a conference be convened to explore a peaceful settlement in terms of an undivided Palestine.[4] According to Benny Morris, Ben-Gurion and Weizmann saw it "as a stepping stone to some further expansion and the eventual takeover of the whole of Palestine".[4][10]
History
Palestine Royal Commission Cmd 5479
With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, The United Kingdom was given a mandate by the League of Nations to administer the region known as Palestine. The mandate continued in force until the United Kingdom withdrew from it in 1948.[12] The solution led to other problems, however, as the British sought to honor the Balfour Declaration while protecting the rights of the prior inhabitants of the territory. The British government investigated numerous possibilities for the region, including partition.
The commission was established at a time of increased violence; serious clashes between Arabs and Jews broke out in 1936 and were to last three years. On 11 November 1936, the commission arrived in Palestine to investigate the reasons behind the uprising. The commission was charged with determining the cause of the riots, and judging the grievances of both sides. Chaim Weizmann made a speech on behalf of the Jews. On 25 November 1936, testifying before the Peel Commission, Weizmann said that there are in Europe 6,000,000 Jews ... "for whom the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter."[13]
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, testified in front of the commission, opposing any partition of Arab lands with the Jews. He demanded full cessation of Jewish immigration. Although the Arabs continued to boycott the Commission officially, there was a sense of urgency to respond to Weizmann's appeal to restore calm. The former Mayor of Jerusalem Ragheb Bey al-Nashashibi—who was the Mufti's rival in the internal Palestinian arena, was thus sent to explain the Arab perspective through unofficial channels.[citation needed]
In 1981 it was disclosed that the Jewish Agency Executive Political Department had installed microphones in the room in which the commission was meeting and Ben Gurion was able to read transcripts of evidence held in camera.[14]
The causes of the Arab rebellion that broke out in the previous year were judged to be
First, the desire of the Arabs for national independence; secondly, their antagonism to the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, quickened by their fear of Jewish domination. Among contributory causes were the effect on Arab opinion of the attainment of national independence by ‘Iraq, Trans-Jordan, Egypt, Syria and the Lebanon; the rush of Jewish immigrants escaping from Central and Eastern Europe; the inequality of opportunity enjoyed by Arabs and Jews respectively in placing their case before Your Majesty’s Government and the public; the growth of Arab mistrust; Arab alarm at the continued purchase of Arab land by the intensive character and the "modernism" of Jewish nationalism; and lastly the general uncertainty, accentuated by the ambiguity of certain phrases in the Mandate, as to the ultimate intentions of the Mandatory Power.[15]
The Commission found that the drafters of the Mandate could not have foreseen the advent of massive Jewish immigration, that they considered due to "drastic restriction of immigration into the United States, the advent of the National Socialist Government in Germany in 1933 and the increasing economic pressure on the Jews in Poland."[16] They wrote that "The continued impact of a highly intelligent and enterprising race, backed by large financial resources, on a comparatively poor indigenous community, on a different cultural level, may produce in time serious reactions."[17]
The Commission found that "though the Arabs have benefited by the development of the country owing to Jewish immigration, this has had no conciliatory effect. On the contrary, improvement in the economic situation in Palestine has meant the deterioration of the political situation".[17] Addressing the "Arab charge that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained", the Commission noted that "Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when it was purchased."[18] They write that "The shortage of land is, we consider, due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population".[18] "Endeavours to control the alienation of land by Arabs to Jews have not been successful. In the hills there is no more room for further close settlement by Jews; in the plains it should only be allowed under certain restrictions."[15]
The Commission stated that Government have attempted to discharge the contradictory obligations of the Mandatory under conditions of great difficulty by "holding the balance" between Jews and Arabs. Repeated attempts to conciliate either race have only increased the trouble. The situation in Palestine has reached a deadlock.[15] Development of local autonomy and selfgoverning institutions, this also has been hampered.[15]
The Commission concluded that the prospect of a unified Palestine with Jews and Arabs as fellow citizens in a common state was remote due to the highly nationalistic natures of the two communities. On the nature of the Yishuv, it wrote that:
"The Jewish National Home is no longer an experiment. The growth of its population has been accompanied by political, social and economic developments along the lines laid down at the outset. The chief novelty is the urban and industrial development. The contrast between the modern democratic and primarily European character of the National Home and that of the Arab world around it is striking. The temper of the Home is strongly nationalist. There can be no question of fusion or assimilation between Jewish and Arab cultures. The National Home cannot be half-national."[19]
It also concluded that such a prospect was growing less realistic with time due to the nature of the Jewish education system, which was causing a rise in Jewish nationalism, writing that "from the ages of three or four years, when children enter the kindergarten to be taught Hebrew if they do not know it already, pride in the past of Jewry and in the National Home as an exclusively and intensely Jewish achievement is the dynamic centre-point of their whole intellectual development. The idea that they are to share their life in any way with the Arabs, that they are growing up to be fellow-citizens with Arabs in a common Palestinian state, is only recognised in the teaching of a little Arabic in the secondary schools... So far, in fact, from facilitating a better understanding between the races, the Jewish educational system is making it more and more difficult as, year by year, its production of eager Jewish nationalists mounts up."[20]
The committee concluded that Arab nationalism was also a potent force and that the two communities were more loyal to their own national leaderships than the Palestine administration:
"Arab nationalism is as intense a force as Jewish. The Arab leaders' demand for national self-government and the shutting down of the Jewish National Home has remained unchanged since 1929. Like Jewish nationalism, Arab nationalism is stimulated by the educational system and by the growth of the Youth Movement. It has also been greatly encouraged by the recent Anglo-Egyptian and Franco-Syrian Treaties. The gulf between the races is thus already wide and will continue to widen if the present Mandate is maintained. The position of the Palestine Government between the two antagonistic communities is unenviable. There are two rival bodies – the Arab Higher Committee allied with the Supreme Moslem Council on the one hand, and the Jewish Agency allied with the Va'ad Leumi on the other – who make a stronger appeal to the natural loyalty of the Arab and the Jews than does the Government of Palestine. The sincere attempts of the Government to treat the two races impartially have not improved the relations between them. Nor has the policy of conciliating Arab opposition been successful. The events of last year proved that conciliation is useless."[19]
The summary report statement concerning the possibility of lasting settlement states: "An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country. There is no common ground between them. Their national aspirations are incompatible. The Arabs desire to revive the traditions of the Arab golden age. The Jews desire to show what they can achieve when restored to the land in which the Jewish nation was born. Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the service of a single State.[21]
Recommendations
The Commission reached the conclusion that the Mandate had become unworkable and must be abolished[1] in favour of partition, as the only solution to the Arab-Jewish "deadlock". It outlined ten points on: a Treaty system between the Arab and Jewish States and the new Mandatory Government; a Mandate for the Holy places; the frontiers; the need for Inter-State Subvention; the need for British Subvention; tariffs and ports; nationality; civil service; Industrial concessions; and the exchange of land and populations.[22]
A Treaty system based on the Iraqi-Syrian precedent, proposed: Permanent mandates for the Jerusalem area and "corridor" stretching to the Mediterranean coast at Jaffa—and the land under its authority (and accordingly, the transfer of both Arab and Jewish populations) be apportioned between an Arab and Jewish state. The Jewish side was to receive a territorially smaller portion in the mid-west and north, from Mount Carmel to south of Be'er Tuvia, as well as the Jezreel Valley and the Galilee, while the Arab state linked with Trans-Jordan was to receive territory in the south and mid-east which included Judea, Samaria, and the sizable Negev desert.[23]
The report stated that Jews contribute more per capita to the revenues of Palestine than the Arabs, and the Government has thereby been enabled to maintain public services for the Arabs at a higher level than would otherwise have been possible. Partition would mean, on the one hand, that the Arab Area would no longer profit from the taxable capacity of the Jewish Area. On the other hand, (1) the Jews would acquire a new right of sovereignty in the Jewish Area; (2) that Area, as we have defined it, would be larger than the existing area of Jewish land and settlement; (3) the Jews would be freed from their present liability for helping to promote the welfare of Arabs outside that Area. It is suggested, therefore, that the Jewish State should pay a subvention to the Arab State when Partition comes into effect. Citing the separation of Sind from Bombay and of Burma from the Indian Empire, as precedents for such financial arrangement.[23][24]
The report stated that if Partition is to be effective in promoting a final settlement it must mean more than drawing a frontier and establishing two States. Sooner or later there should be a transfer of land and, as far as possible, an exchange of population.[23][25] Citing as precedent the 1923 Greek and Turkish exchange, which addressed the constant friction between their minorities. While noting the absence of cultivable land to resettle the Arabs, which would necessitate the execution of large-scale plans for irrigation, water-storage, and development in Trans-Jordan, Beersheba and the Jordan Valley.[23][25] The population exchange, if carried out, would have involved the transfer of up to 225,000 Arabs and 1,250 Jews.[23][25]
Reactions
The Arab reaction
The entire spectrum of Palestinian Arab society rejected the partition plan. There was widespread public opposition including in the media and by religious figures.[4][5] According to Henry Laurens, the Arabs saw the publication of the plan as a ringing disavowal of every key undertaking the Mandatory authorities had made since its inception, that there would be no separate Jewish state, no land expropriations and no expulsions of people. The proposed land swaps and population transfers were seen as annulling and inverting a century of economic development of the littoral region, with, apart from Jaffa and Gaza, Palestinians dispossessed of the essential rural and urban heritage that had evolved over the preceding century of coastal development. Jerusalem was placed outside the future Palestinian state.[26] Palestinians were shocked both by the declaration their land would be divided, and that they themselves would be denied statehood (but only a union with Transjordan), while the Jewish state, extending over a third of the country,[5][6] would absorb the whole of the Galilee, where an overwhelming percentage of the land was owned by Arabs and Jews had only a slender presence.[27][28][29] In compensation, the Arabs were offered valuable areas to the east of Jordan and the southern portion of the Beisan sub-district where irrigation would have been possible.[30] Indignation was widespread with Arabs complaining that the Plan had allotted to them "the barren mountains", while the Jews would receive most of the five cultivable plains, the maritime Plain, the Acre Plain, the Marj Ibn 'Amir, Al Huleh and the Jordan Valley[31] For the Arabs, the plan envisaged giving Zionists the best land, with 82% of Palestine's principal export, citrus fruit, consigned to Jewish control.[31][30][32]
The idea of transfer of population met strong opposition.[10] Under the Peel proposal, before transfer, there would be 1,250 Jews in the proposed Arab state, while there would be 225,000 Arabs in the Jewish state. The Peel proposal suggested a population transfer based on the model of Greece and Turkey in 1923, which would have been "in the last resort ... compulsory".[5] It was understood on all sides that there was no way of dividing the land which would not have meant a large number of Arabs (a large minority or even a majority) in the land designated for a Jewish state.[33]
The solution proposed by the Peel Commission was partition. The Jews were to gain statehood in 20 percent of the territory of Palestine, including most of the coastline and some of the country's most fertile agricultural land, in the Jezreel Valley and the Galilee. The Arabs were allotted the poorest lands of Palestine, including the Negev Desert and the Arava Valley, as well as the hill country of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
At the leadership level, there were tensions between the factions. Husseini, who according to his biographer was an "authoritarian who could not tolerate opposition", feared the recommended merger with Transjordan under the rule of King Abdullah. The latter stood to gain much from partition; reaching an accord with the Nashashibis could have consolidated his rule and left Husseini powerless.[4] The Palestinians also opposed being consigned to the far more economically feeble society of the Transjordan.[26]
Despite some initial support by the Nashashibi family of notables and Jordan's King Abdullah,[4][1][27] the Arab Higher Committee (HAC) and the Nashashibis (who had strong roots in both the littoral region and Jerusalem and had defected from the HAC) opposed the partition plan and condemned it unanimously. They argued that the creation of a Jewish state and lack of independent Palestine was a betrayal of the word given by Britain,[2] and emphatically rejected the idea of giving land to the Jews.[6] This objection was accompanied by a proposal that Britain adhere to its promise of a sovereign democratic state with constitutional guarantees for the rights of the Jewish minority.[4] The Plan was also repudiated at the Bloudan Conference convened in Syria on 8 September, where parties from all over the Arab world rejected both the partition and establishment of a Jewish state in the Palestine Mandate.[35] In 1937, the US Consul General at Jerusalem reported to the State Department that the Mufti refused the principle of partition and declined to consider it. The Consul said the emir Abdullah urged acceptance on the ground that realities must be faced, but wanted modification of the proposed boundaries and Arab administrations in the neutral enclave. The Consul also noted that Nashashibi sidestepped the principle, but was willing to negotiate for favorable modifications.[36]
The Jewish reaction
Zionist Congress resolution on the Peel Commission partition plan
On 20 August 1937, the Twentieth Zionist Congress expressed that, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, it was understood that the Jewish National Home was to be established in the whole of historic Palestine, including Trans-Jordan, and that inherent in the Declaration was the possibility of the evolution of Palestine into a Jewish State.[37]
While some factions at the Congress supported the Peel Report, arguing that later the borders could be adjusted, others opposed the proposal because the Jewish State would be too small. The Congress decided to reject the specific borders recommended by the Peel Commission, but empowered its executive to negotiate a more favorable plan for a Jewish State in Palestine.[38][39] In the wake of the Peel Commission the Jewish Agency set up committees to begin planning for the state. At the time, it had already created a complete administrative apparatus amounting to "a Government existing side by side with the Mandatory Government."[39]
At the same Zionist Congress, David Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, told those in attendance that, though "there could be no question...of giving up any part of the Land of Israel,... it was arguable that the ultimate goal would be achieved most quickly by accepting the Peel proposals."[40]University of Arizona professor Charles D. Smith suggests that, "Weizmann and Ben-Gurion did not feel they had to be bound by the borders proposed [by the Peel Commission]. These could be considered temporary boundaries to be expanded in the future."[40] Ben-Gurion saw the plan as only a stage in the realisation of a larger Jewish state.[41]
The two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and Ben-Gurion, had convinced the Zionist Congress to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation.[42][43][44]
Aftermath
The Peel Plan proved to be the master partition plan, on which all those that followed were either based, or to which they were compared, ushering in a fundamental change in the British outlook on Palestine's future.[2]
Following the report's publication the British Government released a statement of policy, agreeing with its conclusions and proposing to seek from the League of Nations authority to proceed with a plan of partition.[1] In March 1938, the British appointed the Woodhead Commission to "examine the Peel Commission plan in detail and to recommend an actual partition plan". The Woodhead Commission considered three different plans, one of which was based on the Peel plan. Reporting in 1938, the Commission rejected the Peel plan primarily on the grounds that it could not be implemented without a massive forced transfer of Arabs (an option that the British government had already ruled out).[45] With dissent from some of its members, the Commission instead recommended a plan that would leave the Galilee under British mandate, but emphasized serious problems with it that included a lack of financial self-sufficiency of the proposed Arab State.[45] The British Government accompanied the publication of the Woodhead Report by a statement of policy rejecting partition as impracticable due to "political, administrative and financial difficulties".[46]
At the Bloudan Conference of 1937, parties from all over the Arab world rejected both the partition and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, thus claiming all of Palestine.[35]
The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization, Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and soon to be first Prime Minister of Israel. It declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, which would come into effect on termination of the British Mandate at midnight that day. The event is celebrated annually in Israel as Independence Day, a national holiday on 5 Iyar of every year according to the Hebrew calendar.
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Resolution 181 (II).
A popular uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against the British administration of the Palestine Mandate, later known as The Great Revolt or The Great Palestinian Revolt, or the Palestinian Revolution, lasted from 1936 until 1939, demanding Arab independence and the end of the policy of open-ended Jewish immigration and land purchases with the stated goal of establishing a "Jewish National Home".
Yishuv, HaYishuv HaIvri, or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el denotes the body of Jewish residents in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 25,000 Jews living in that region, and continued to be used until 1948, by which time there were some 630,000 Jews there. The term is still in use to denote the pre-1948 Jewish residents in Palestine, corresponding to the southern part of Ottoman Syria until 1918, OETA South in 1917–1920, and Mandatory Palestine in 1920–1948.
The history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict traces back to the late 19th century when Zionists sought to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Ottoman-controlled Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, issued by the British government, endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which led to an influx of Jewish immigrants to the region. Following World War II and the Holocaust, international pressure mounted for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, leading to the creation of Israel in 1948.
Greater Israel is an expression with several different biblical and political meanings over time. It is often used, in an irredentist fashion, to refer to the historic or desired borders of Israel.
The White Paper of 1939 was a policy paper issued by the British government, led by Neville Chamberlain, in response to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. After its formal approval in the House of Commons on 23 May 1939, it acted as the governing policy for Mandatory Palestine from 1939 to the 1948 British departure. After the war, the Mandate was referred to the United Nations.
The Woodhead Commission was a British technical commission established to propose "a detailed" partition scheme for Mandatory Palestine, including recommending the partition boundaries and examination of economic and financial aspects of the Peel Plan.
The Passfield White Paper, issued October 20, 1930, by colonial secretary Lord Passfield, was a formal statement of British policy in Palestine, which previously had been set by the Churchill White Paper of 1922. The new statement resulted from the Hope Simpson Commission's investigation into the deeper causes of the 1929 Palestine riots, that initially started over access to the Western Wall. The white paper limited official Jewish immigration to a much greater degree.
During the 1948 Palestine war in which the State of Israel was established, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs or 85% of the total population of the territory Israel captured fled or were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces. The causes for this mass displacement is a matter of great controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators.
Nashashibi is the name of a prominent Palestinian family based in Jerusalem.
The Palestinian people are an ethnonational group with family origins in the region of Palestine. Since 1964, they have been referred to as Palestinians, but before that they were usually referred to as Palestinian Arabs. During the period of the British Mandate, the term Palestinian was also used to describe the Jewish community living in Palestine.
During the British rule in Mandatory Palestine, there was civil, political and armed struggle between Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish Yishuv, beginning from the violent spillover of the Franco-Syrian War in 1920 and until the onset of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The conflict shifted from sectarian clashes in the 1920s and early 1930s to an armed Arab Rebellion against British rule in 1936, armed Jewish Revolt primarily against the British in mid-1940s and finally open war in November 1947 between Arabs and Jews.
The London Conference of 1939, or St James's Palace Conference, which took place between 7 February – 17 March 1939, was called by the British Government to plan the future governance of Palestine and an end of the Mandate. It opened on 7 February 1939 in St James's Palace after which the Colonial Secretary, Malcolm MacDonald held a series of separate meetings with the Palestinian and Zionist delegation, because the Palestinian delegation refused to sit in the same room as the Zionist delegation. When MacDonald first announced the proposed conference he made clear that if no agreement was reached the government would impose a solution. The process came to an end after five and a half weeks with the British announcing proposals which were later published as the 1939 White Paper.
Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
The Arab Higher Committee or the Higher National Committee was the central political organ of Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans and political parties under the mufti's chairmanship. The committee was outlawed by the British Mandatory administration in September 1937 after the assassination of a British official.
This is a timeline of intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine.
The 1937 Ben-Gurion letter is a letter written by David Ben-Gurion, then head of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency, to his son Amos on 5 October 1937. The letter is well known to scholars as it provides insight into Ben-Gurion's reaction to the report of the Peel Commission released on 7 July of the same year.
Black Sunday, 1937 refers to a series of acts undertaken by Jewish militants of the Irgun faction against Arab civilians on 14 November 1937. It was among the first challenges to the Havlagah policy not to retaliate against Arab attacks on Jewish civilians.
The London Conference of 1946–1947, which took place between September 1946 and February 1947, was called by the British Government of Clement Attlee to resolve the future governance of Palestine and negotiate an end of the Mandate. It was scheduled following an Arab request after the April 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry report.
↑ Chaim Weizmann (1 January 1983). The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann: series B. Transaction Publishers. pp.102–. ISBN978-0-87855-297-9. On 25 November 1936, testifying before the Peel Commission, Weizmann said that there are in Europe 6,000,000 Jews ... 'for whom the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter.'
↑ Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. pp.11, 48, 49. ISBN978-0-521-00967-6. Retrieved 25 July 2013. p. 11: "while the Zionist movement, after much agonising, accepted the principle of partition and the proposals as a basis for negotiation"; p. 49: "In the end, after bitter debate, the Congress equivocally approved – by a vote of 299 to 160 – the Peel recommendations as a basis for further negotiation."
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
