Peel Commission - Reactions

Reactions

The Arab leadership in Palestine rejected the plan, arguing that the Arabs had been promised independence and granting rights to the Jews was a betrayal. The Arabs emphatically rejected the principle of awarding any territory to the Jews. After lobbying by the Arab Higher Committee, hundreds of delegates from across the Arab world convened at the Bloudan Conference in Syria on 8 September and wholly rejected both the partition and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Jewish opinion remained divided. The Twentieth Zionist Congress in Zurich (3-16 August 1937) announced "that the partition plan proposed by the Peel Commission is not to be accepted, 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".

At the same Zionist Congress in Zurich, David Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, told those in attendance that, though "there could be no question ... of giving up any part of the Land of Israel,... it was arguable that the ultimate goal would be achieved most quickly by accepting the Peel proposals." University of Arizona professor Charles D. Smith suggests that, "Weizmann and Ben-Gurion did not feel they had to be bound by the borders proposed . These could be considered temporary boundaries to be expanded in the future."

Ben-Gurion wrote: "The compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we have never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the First and Second Temples: . ... We are being given an opportunity which we never dared to dream of in our wildest imagination. This is more than a state, government and sovereignty---this is a national consolidation in a free homeland. ... if because of our weakness, neglect or negligence, the thing is not done, then we will have lost a chance which we never had before, and may never have again."

Ben-Gurion wrote 20 years later: "Had partition been carried out, the history of our people would have been different and six million Jews in Europe would not have been killed---most of them would be in Israel".'

The British response was to set up the Woodhead Commission to "examine the Peel Commission plan in detail and to recommend an actual partition plan" This Commission declared the Peel Commission partition unworkable (though suggesting a different scheme under which 5% of the land area of Palestine become Israel). The British Government accompanied the publication of the Woodhead Report by a statement of policy rejecting partition as impracticable