Peel commission
The Peel Commission was a commission set up by the British during their mandate in Palestine . On July 7, 1937, she proposed for the first time the division of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.
After the start of the Great Arab Uprising , the British Mandate Government set up a commission of inquiry in August 1936, chaired by Sir William Peel (1867-1937). The most influential member was the Oxford history professor Reginald Coupland (1884–1952). The commission arrived in Palestine on November 11, 1936 and heard over 113 testimony from Jews and Arabs (radical and moderate). After the interviews, the commission recommended a partition plan by means of which the "irreconcilable conflict [...] between two national communities within the narrow borders of a small country" would be resolved. Because of the widespread Arab nationalism among the Muslim population, “national assimilation of Arabs and Jews is excluded”. For the first time, the plan provided for the division of Palestine into a Jewish part and an Arab part. The former was to encompass the coastal plain, the Jezreel Valley and a large part of Galilee , while the latter was to include the remaining areas ( Judea , Samaria and the Negev ) with Transjordan (now Jordan ) and a British-controlled corridor from Jerusalem to the coast of Jaffa . The area intended for the Arabs was much larger and made of one piece, in contrast to the Jewish part, which was separated by an area controlled by the British. In order to create as homogeneous a population as possible, a reciprocal population transfer was considered.
The population transfer would have affected around 225,000 Arabs on the one hand and 1,250 Jews on the other.
The Arab side - with the exception of King Abdallah of Transjordan - rejected this proposal, while the Jewish side was initially divided, but then reluctantly agreed. The British government later dropped the partition plan, set up the Woodhead Commission and published the MacDonald White Paper following the recommendations of that commission .
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Peel Commission Report (July 1937) , p. 370.
- ^ The Peel Commission Report (July 1937) , p. 371 (English).
- ^ The Peel Commission Report (July 1937) , p. 389 (English).
- ^ The Peel Commission Report (July 1937, pdf-scan; 45.5 MB ), pp. 389–391.