9. Peel Commission, 1937
At the height of the 1936-39 disturbances, a royal commission of inquiry came to
Palestine from London to investigate the roots of the Arab-Jewish conflict and to
propose solutions. The commission, headed by Lord Robert Peel, heard a great
deal of testimony in Palestine, and in July 1937 issued its recommendations: to
abolish the Mandate and partition the country between the two peoples. Only a
zone between Jaffa and Jerusalem would remain under the British mandate and
international supervision.
The Jewish state would include the coastal strip stretching from Mount Carmel to
south of Be'er Tuvia, as well as the Jezreel Valley and the Galilee. The Arab state
was to include the hill regions, Judea and Samaria, and the Negev. Until the
establishment of the two states, the commission recommended, Jews should be
prohibited from purchasing land in the area allocated to the Arab state.
To overcome demarcation problems, it was proposed that land exchanges be
carried out concurrently with the transfer of population from one area to the
other. Demarcation of the precise borders of the states was entrusted to a
technical partition committee. The Peel Commission did not believe that Jewish
immigration was detrimental to the financial well-being of the Arab population
and assumed that the issue of Jewish immigration would be resolved within the
Jewish state.
The British government accepted the recommendations of the Peel Commission
regarding the partition of Palestine, and the announcement was endorsed by
Parliament in London. Among the Jews, bitter disagreements erupted between
supporters and opponents, while the Arabs rejected the proposal and refused to
regard it as a solution. The plan was ultimately shelved.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/peel.html
