Policy of Deceit by Peter Shambrook

Author:Peter Shambrook
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780861546336
Publisher: Oneworld

Figure 8: The Peel Commission Partition Plan, 1937

that the National Home in Palestine, if you can get sufficient in that country to meet immediate requirements as a Sovereign Power, will be the first step, in my opinion, towards getting back into the rest of the country. It will take many years, but it will come.131

In one illuminating passage of the Peel Report, the commissioners noted that

the Jewish problem is not the least of the many problems which are disturbing international relations at this critical time and obstructing the path to peace and prosperity. If the Arabs at some sacrifice could help to solve that problem, they would earn the gratitude not of the Jews alone but of all the Western world.132

This phrase betrayed an anti-Semitic reluctance to open doors to Central European Jews. The British continued to act as if it were not their responsibility but that of the Palestinian Arabs to solve the Jewish Question – by giving the Jews a substantial portion of Palestine.

Delivered on 23 July, the Palestinians’ statement of response to the Royal Commission’s findings was as inevitable as it was unambiguous. It included:

The Arab Higher Committee bases its claim to complete independence on natural right, on the principles of the Covenant of the League of Nations and on the Promises made by the British Government to the late King Hussein. While stating that the British Government claims that Palestine was excluded from these promises, the Royal Commission has not itself confirmed this claim nor attempted to justify it.

With reference to the request of the Arab witnesses that this point should be investigated, the Commissioners have stated that they did not consider that their terms of reference required them to undertake the detailed and lengthy research among the documents of 20 years ago which would be needed for a full re-examination of this question. They did not, however, hesitate to undertake a similar work with regard to the promises made to the Jews about two years later.133

For the Zionist leadership, partition was more a ‘mixed blessing’ than ‘a poisoned chalice’ because it was the first time the Jewish national home was officially and publicly equated with a Jewish state. According to Mearsheimer and Walt, they were sometimes willing to accept partition as a first step

but this was a tactical manoeuvre and not their real objective. They had no intention of coexisting alongside a viable Palestinian state over the long run, as that outcome was in direct conflict with their dream of creating a Jewish state in all of Palestine.134

Weizmann was initially critical of the report because it potentially restricted the Zionist endeavour to take all of Palestine for the Jewish State. Ben-Gurion too publicly expressed his criticism of partition:

The Jewish people have always regarded, and will continue to regard Palestine as a whole, as a single country which is theirs in a national sense, and will become theirs once again. No Jew will accept partition as a just and rightful solution.135

However, in private, he sang a different tune.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.