Peel Commission

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. 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." == Membership ==

The Chairman of the Commission was William Peel, 1st Earl Peel and the Vice-Chairman was Sir Horace Rumbold, 9th Baronet. The other members were Sir Laurie Hammond, Sir Morris Carter, Sir Harold Morris, and Reginald Coupland. ==Conclusions==

giving evidence The causes of the Arab rebellion that broke out in the previous year were judged to be as follows: 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." 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." 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". 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". 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: 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. == Recommendations ==

The Commission reached the conclusion that the Mandate had become unworkable and must be abolished 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. 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 territory in the south and mid-east which included Judea, Samaria, and the sizable Negev desert would be combined with Trans-Jordan to form an Arab state. 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. == Reactions ==

The Arab reaction Although some factions of the Palestinian Arab leadership initially supported partition, a wide spectrum of Palestinian Arab society rejected the plan. 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, 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. 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. For the Arabs, the plan envisaged giving Zionists the best land, with 82% of Palestine's principal export, citrus fruit, consigned to Jewish control. The idea of transfer of population met strong opposition. a rift which led the Nashashibis to leave the Arab Higher Committee (AHC). Amin al-Husseini was persuaded by the other Arab leaders to testify to the Commission. 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. The Jewish reaction On 20 August 1937, the Twentieth Zionist Congress asserted 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. 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. 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." 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." 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. ==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. 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. == See also ==