Peel Commission

The Peel Commission, formally known as the Palestine Royal Commission, was a British Royal Commission of Inquiry, headed by Lord Peel, appointed in 1936 to investigate the causes of conflict in Mandatory Palestine, which was administered by the United Kingdom, following a six-month-long Arab general strike.

On 7 July 1937, the commission published a report that, for the first time, stated that the League of Nations Mandate had become unworkable and recommended partition. The Arab Higher Committee opposed the idea of a Jewish state They also demanded cessation of all Jewish immigration and land purchase. The Jewish Agency Council later attached a request that a conference be convened to explore a peaceful settlement in terms of an undivided Palestine.

History

thumb|page=2|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. 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

thumb|Lord Peel, 1936

thumb|[[Chaim Weizmann 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".

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."

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:

At the leadership level, there were tensions between the factions. Amin al-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 notables of the Nashashibi family could have consolidated his rule and left Husseini powerless. 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

thumb|Zionist Congress resolution on the Peel Commission partition plan

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.

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.

Sources

External links

Summary of the Report of the Palestine Royal Commission (from the United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine – UNISPAL)
David Ben-Gurion Laments Rejection of Peel Commission Recommendations Shapell Manuscript Foundation