Zionist leaders in Britain and the United States immediately launched an intense
campaign against the Passfield policies, notably the proposed limit on Jewish immi-
gration. Their campaign succeeded. In February 1931, Prime Minister Ramsay Mac-
Donald sent British Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann a letter essentially repudiating
the Passfield White Paper by emphasizing Britain’s “positive obligation” under the
League of Nations mandate to facilitate Jewish immigration to Palestine.
Another outbreak of violence in the spring of 1936 led to a strike by Arabs that
crippled much of Palestine’s economy; more than 300 people, most of them Arabs,
died in the violence over a six-month period. In an attempt to calm the situation, the
British government appointed the Palestine Royal Commission headed by Lord Robert
Peel, the former secretary of state for India. The commission arrived in Palestine in
November 1936 and spent two months taking testimony from Arabs (who at first boy-
cotted the proceedings) and Jews.
The commission’s report, submitted in July 1937, represented a repudiation of the
key elements of British policy toward Palestine during the previous two decades. Fun-
damentally, the commission said, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 had fostered an
irreconcilable conflict between Arabs and Jews over the land of Palestine: Arabs feared
being overwhelmed by Jewish economic power, backed by British policy, and that they
ultimately would be driven from their homes and deprived of their livelihoods. On
the other hand, the Jews assumed that they had de facto British support for creating
a Jewish state in Palestine. The report offered a gloomy assessment of the prospects of
accommodating both of these communities, noting that it had found “no hope of com-
promise” in the stated positions of Arab and Jewish leaders.
As an alternative to a future unified state in Palestine—which had been the ex-
pectation behind the League of Nations mandate—the Peel Commission proposed
splitting Palestine into three sections: one for Arabs, one for Jews, and a central
enclave (including Jerusalem) to remain under British control as a neutral zone. Call-
ing this plan “partition,” the commission said it would entail hardships for both com-
munities but was the best of the available options. “The difficulties are certainly very
great, but when they are closely examined they do not seem so insuperable as the dif-
ficulties inherent in the continuance of the mandate or in any other alternative
arrangement,” the commission wrote. “Partition offers a chance of ultimate peace.
No other plan does.” One of the difficulties acknowledged by the commission was
that tens of thousands of people—most of them Arabs—would have to move volun-
tarily or be forcibly moved to create two states. The commission cited what it called
a successful precedent: the transfer of more than 1.3 million Greeks from Turkey and
some 400,000 Turks from Greece nearly fifteen years earlier as part of the settlement
of the 1921–1922 war between Greece and Turkey (Turkey Emerges from World
War I, p. 631.)
The British government initially endorsed the Peel Commission recommenda-
tions. Zionist leaders in Britain and in Palestine liked the idea of transferring Arabs
from parts of Palestine that would constitute the core of a Jewish state, but they were
divided on the wisdom of ceding any of the territory of Palestine to the Arabs. Arab
leaders flatly rejected the concept of partition because it ratified the Zionist plans for
a Jewish state on land they considered to be Arab territory, gave Jews some of the
most fertile agricultural land, and required the forced transfer of many more Arabs
than Jews.
ARABS AND ISRAELIS 43