Peel Commission
The Peel Commission of 1936, formally known as the Palestine Royal Commission, was a British Royal Commission of Inquiry set out to propose changes to the British Mandate of Palestine following the outbreak of the Great Uprising. It was headed by Lord Peel.
On 11 November, 1936, the commission arrived to Palestine to investigate the reasons behind the uprising. It returned back to Britain on 18 January, 1937. On 7 July, 1937, it recommended that the Mandate be eventually abolished — except in a "corridor" surrounding Jerusalem, stretching to the Mediterranean Coast just south of Jaffa — and the land under its authority (and accordingly, the transfer of both Arab and Jewish populations) be apportioned between an Arab and Jewish states. The Jewish side was to receive a territorially smaller portion in the mid-west and north, from Mount Carmel to south of Be'er Tuvia, as well as the Jezreel Valley and the Galilee, while the Arab state was to receive territory in the south and mid-east which included Judea, Samaria and the Negev.
The Arab leadership rejected the plan, while the Jewish opinion remained heatedly divided. The Twentieth Zionist Congress in Zurich (3–16 August) announced that the partition plan proposed by the Peel Commission is not to be accepted, [but wished] to carry on negotiations in order to clarify the exact substance of the British government's proposal for the foundation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
References
Report of the Palestine Royal Commission
See also
- Arab-Israeli conflict
- 1922 Text: League of Nations Palestine Mandate
- White Paper of 1939
- Shaw Report
Categories: Israeli history | Palestine | Jews in Ottoman and British Palestine | Arab