DOCUMENT
Official Summary of the
Palestine Royal Commission
JULY7, 1937[Parts I and II of the Official Summary discuss the ancient and recent history of Palestine,
along with specific details of the situation faced by the British mandatory authorities in 1937.]
PART III: THE POSSIBILITY OF A LASTING SETTLEMENT
Chapter XX. The Force of Circumstances
The problem of Palestine is briefly restated.
Under the stress of the World War the British Government made promises to
Arabs and Jews in order to obtain their support. On the strength of those promises
both parties formed certain expectations.
The application to Palestine of the Mandate System in general and of the specific
Mandate in particular implies the belief that the obligations thus undertaken towards
the Arabs and the Jews respectively would prove in course of time to be mutually com-
patible owing to the conciliatory effect on the Palestinian Arabs of the material pros-
perity which Jewish immigration would bring in Palestine as a whole. That belief has
not been justified, and there seems to be no hope of its being justified in the future.
But the British people cannot on that account repudiate their obligations, and,
apart from obligations, the existing circumstances in Palestine would still require the
most strenuous efforts on the part of the Government which is responsible for the wel-
fare of the country.
The existing circumstances are summarized as follows.
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.
The conflict has grown steadily more bitter since 1920 and the process will con-
tinue. Conditions inside Palestine, especially the systems of education, are strengthen-
ing the national sentiment of the two peoples. The bigger and more prosperous they
grow the greater will be their political ambitions, and the conflict is aggravated by the
uncertainty of the future. “Who in the end will govern Palestine?” it is asked. Mean-
while, the external factors will continue to operate with increasing force. On the one
hand in less than three years’ time Syria and the Lebanon will attain their national
sovereignty, and the claim of the Palestinian Arabs to share in the freedom of all Asi-
atic Arabia will thus be fortified. On the other hand the hardships and anxieties of the
Jews in Europe are not likely to grow less and the appeal to the good faith and human-
ity of the British people will lose none of its force.
ARABS AND ISRAELIS 45