Memorandum of the Arab Higher Committee: On the Peel Commission Report

Memorandum of the Arab Higher Committee

On the Peel Commission Report

 

Jerusalem, 23 July 1937

TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE HIGH COMISSIONER FOR PALESTINE

AND THROUGH AND BY HIS KINDNESS

TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES IN LONDON

AND

TO THE PRESIDENT 0F THE PERMANENT MANDATES COMMISSION AT GENEVA.

The Arab Higher Committee have perused and studied the Report of the Royal Commission for Palestine issued on 7^th July 1937 and the Statement of British Policy therewith connected and dated July 7^th 1937, and beg to make comment and response under the following heads:

1 - The Disappointment of the Arabs:

The Arab Higher Committee deeply regrets that it must make an immediate declaration of the extreme disappointment of the Arab people of Palestine at the result of the Royal Commission's investigations here, and must express in this connection its profound grief at the proposals which have been offered as a solution of the Palestine problem. Particularly it would express in this connection its repugnance to the whole of the partition scheme, which il sincerely regards as a measure very far from being calculated or likely to establish security, restore public confidence or bring peace to this country.

2 - The Erroneous Premise of the Royal Commission that the Arab and Jewish cases are by their moral and historical nature of an equal weight and urgency.

We regard as a profound error the point of view adopted by His Majesty's Government that in their mutual relations the Arabs and the Jews of Palestine stand as opposed litigants with equal rights. Though we have always repudiated any such suggestion, the Royal Commission have gone still further, and in seeking their “solution”, have treated the Jewish case as t he basic issue, to be considered and solved without reference to the Arab issues a t stake. Accordingly its actual and stated policy has been that His Majesty's Government must fulfil its promises to the Jews and only in the second place consider its promises to the Arabs; this, despite the solemn assertion of the Permanent Mandates’ Commission and the British Government that their “dual obligations” are of equal weight. The latter assertion is itself a n under­statement of the Arab rights which is not justified by either mora li ty or history. For the Arabs of Palestine are the owners of the country and lived in it prior to the British Occupation for hundreds of years and in it they still constitute the overwhelming majority . The Jews on the other hand are a minority of intruders, who before the war had no great standing in this country, and whose political connections therewith had been severed for almost 2,000 years. It is impossible to find either in logic or morality any justification for the attempt to renew this broken connection by the establishment of a so-called Jewish National Home. Such an attempt is without precedent in history, ancient or modern, nor is it based on anything but the force of British Arms and the complete lack of a sense of political reality among the Jews.

3 - The Situation in the Great War and the Obligations of the British Government:

The Royal Commission has at last admitted that it was the seriousness of the situation of the British Government, during the Great War, which led it to issue the Balfour Declaration to the Jews after it had already made certain promises to the Arabs. It may be that the British Government thus assumed obligations mutually exclusive of fulfilment, but this does not affect the all-important fact that the Arabs have the natural right to enjoy the freedom of self-rule in their own country; more particularly since the promises they obtained from the British (for which they paid in full measure) and the obligations which they in return assumed, were but the means to the expressed end of achieving that right. The Arabs have always repudiated the declaration given to the Jews as an undertaking which Great Britain should never have assumed, and which, moreover, was against all natural principles, in so far aa it aims at establishing an alien people in a country where no sort of justification exists for their settlement as a nation and at transferring to them the land which was at the time, and still is, inhabited by its historic owners, the Arabs.

4 - The Unceasing Protest of t he Arabs against the Balfour Declaration:

The Arabs have never ceased since its promulgation in 1917 vigorously to repudiate the Balfour Declaration, proclaiming through every congress, party programme and delegation their steadfast rejection thereof. They have always emphasized its invalidity, its inner contradictions, the injustice of its conception and its inherent partiality. The words of its formula spelt the betrayal or the Arabs of Palestine. Therefore they have continually demanded that it should be rescinded, and they have never ceased to warn the authorities of the trouble it would bring to Palestine.

5 - The Admission by the Royal Commission of the impossibility of reconciling these two obligations and the culpability of the British Government and the Permanent Mandates Commission in ignoring this fact:

The Arab Higher Committee considers it its duty in this place to point out that the Royal Commission , in its Report, and the British Government , in its Statement of Policy, have admitted the impossibility of reconciling the British Government’s obligations to the Arabs with those to the Jews, because they mutually conflict. The Arabs have insisted upon this irreconcilability from the inception of the Mandate and throughout the period in which a policy based upon this veritable impossibility has been implemented. We now, therefore, assert that the British Government has consciously persisted in a policy of palpable errors and recognized contradiction, by mere weight of armed force, despite the unceasing gestures of protest and repudiation on the part of the Arabs, and even despite demonstrations which have cost them life and blood. This has gone on till the number of the Jews in Palestine has reached 400,000. This increase of Jewish population has greatly increased the complication of the Palestine problem. It is deeply to be regretted that the Permanent Mandates Commission did not carry out an independent and impartial investigation in response to the repeated protests and demands which were addressed to it; recent events and admissions would seem to show how little justified was its satisfaction with the British Government’s assertion of the possibility of reconciling its dual obligations.

6 - The Recognition by the Royal Commission of the Arab Aspirations for Independence and the Repudiation of the National Home Policy since the Occupation.

The Arab Higher Committee considers it its further duty to point out that the Royal Commission has admitted in its Report that the desire of the Arabs for independence and their determined opposition to the establishment of the Jewish National Home existed from the very beginning of the British Occupation of Palestine. They further recognize that the intensity of this attitude has in no way diminished in the interim, but, on the contrary, that the causes of the 1936 disturbances were but an intensification of those which had led to every demonstration made by the Arabs since 1920. The British Government, we regret to say, has persistently ignored this fact, meeting our rightful protests with armed force instead of the spirit of honest and impartial enquiry into the reasons thereof. No problem is insoluble if it be investigated in the spirit of justice and equity, but this has constantly been denied us.

7 - The Possibility of Solving the Palestine Problem on the Basis of Justice and National Right.

The unprejudiced observer, viewing the Palestine problem in the light of the principles of justice and national right, would not, as some have done, declare its complexity to be such as to require a surgical operation which must prove fatal to the welfare of the country as a whole. It must be candidly recognized that Palestine is still an Arab country, because the majority of its population is Arab, the majority of its property owners are Arabs and because of its unbroken historical connection with the Arabs for over 1400 years. The Jews on the other hand are even now a minority in the country. Many of them have retained their alien nationality and as such are incapable of loyalty to Palestine, being prevented from ever becoming settled here, to the degree that the Arabs are, by their economic and social ties with a number of foreign countries. Palestine is not the only country where different national groups are found living side by side. In other countries, where this phenomenon is encountered, the government follows the natural principle of majority rule with minority protection. Therefore by analogy with existing examples, it was to be expected that the Royal Commission would suggest a solution of the Palestine problem on the basis of this natural principle which is operative in the rest of the world.

8 - The Royal Commission's Evasion of the Obvious and Natural Solution of the Palestine Problem.

The Royal Commission, however, has avoided the part of logic and justice, coming forward with strange suggestions, which to every man actually in this country cannot but mean a further complication of the problem, an increase in the general uncertainty which hangs over the land and a ceaseless menace to any hope of pub1ic peace and confidence. The suggestions put forward by the Royal Commission are the result of its considering the Jewish claims without reference to the Arab cause, and, further, of sympathies aroused in it by the emotional and irrelevant references of Jewish witnesses to the sufferings of Jews in other parts of the world. The Royal Commission’s resultant desire to alleviate their plight in other parts of the world, however praiseworthy in the abstract, cannot but call forth our opposition when it is proposed to secure such alleviation at the cost of our own racial future.

9 - The Impossibility of Solving the Problem of International Jewry through Palestine.

The Arab Higher Committee cannot but express its amazement that the Royal Commission, under the impression produced by Jewish difficulties in foreign countries, should be blind to the fact that the problems of world-Jewry cannot be solved by the annexation of all or part of Palestine. For if Palestine absorbed the maximum possible number of Jewish immigrants, it could not hold more than a fraction of World-Jewry.

The Arab Higher Committee begs, therefore, to suggest that if the British people wish to aid the Jews from humanitarian motives, and help them forward to peace, confidence and freedom from persecution, the means to that end should not be a project by which the Arabs of Palestine will be uprooted from their country and deprived of their best land to accommodate the Jews. Rather, we would suggest, that Britain should exert its great influence for the protection of Jews and Jewish interests in the countries where they now reside. or provide areas for their settlement within its own domains.

10 - The Royal Commission’s suggestion concerning a Jewish State:

The Royal Commission recommended the establishment of an autonomous Jewish State. They propose that its limits should include the most important and fertile plain lands, almost in their entirety, the coastal region and the large agricultural area bounded by the northern frontier. In the section so delimited there are some 300,000 Jews and 325,000 Arabs. In the northern sector of this area there are districts which are entirely Arab. An instance is the Acre district where there are 50,000 Arabs and 63 Arab villages, but only one Jewish village with 300 inhabitants. In the districts of Tiberias, Safad and Haifa in the same region the Jewish inhabitants do not n umber one quarter of the total population . According to the census of 1931 , a fact mentioned by the Royal Commission, the number of Arabs in these four districts was 171,000; the Jews numbered 35,000. In the plain and coastal areas to the south there are a large number of Arab villages, and the Arabs own some four times the amount of landed and immovable property which the Jews possess. Out of a total of 8,000,000 dunums of land in that area, of which 4,500,000 dunums are cultivable, the Jews do not hold more than 1,250,000 dunums. It has further been assessed that 7/8 of the total area of orange groves owned by Arabs are on lands designated for the Jewish State. Furthermore in this area are hundreds of Arab mosques, churches, religious shrines, cemeteries, the object of the people's veneration, and large areas of religious “Waqf”. The establishment, therefore, of a Jewish State in this area means subjecting an Arab community, the predominant element in respect of numbers and private and religious property, to the control of the Jewish State. This situation is illogical, humiliating, impracticable and fraught with danger. It appears to us in the highest degree anomalous that the Royal Commission, while finding it impossible that a Jewish minority should be placed under the rule of an Arab majority, should yet find no difficulty in the reverse process or even in placing an A ra b majority under a Jewish minority.

Reference was made in the Royal Commission’s recommendations to a proposed system of “exchange” of population and property to be effected between the two suggested States. How this came to be considered a feasible suggestion is past comprehension . The Royal Commission admits that as against 1250 Jews owning a negligible quantity of property in the proposed Arab area, there are resident in the suggested Jewish State (according to the Royal Commission’s own report) some 225,000 Arabs, in addition to the 100,000 Arabs who are resident in the towns of Haifa, Acre, Tiberias and Safad. Since no “exchange” is possible from the Jewish side we cannot but take it that this means the more or less forcible expulsion of the Arab inhabitants of the Jewish State and the expropriation of their property.

It is true that the Royal Commission stated that the mosques, churches, religious sites and “waqfs”, falling within the prospective Jewish State, should receive mandatory protection. The holiness of these places, however, depends on and demands the continuance of the religious ceremonies which have in the past hallowed them. It is not without serious misgiving that we recall the fate which has befallen such religious sites and premises in villages and towns where the Jews have already acquired control of the land. Mosques and cemeteries have completely disappeared.

We find it hard to understand how the Royal Commission, in making such recommendations, came to ignore the inevitable results of such an attempt on so large a bod y of people, particularly in the light of their own remarks on t he strength and spirit of Arab national feeling. The prospect which the Commission envisages cannot but arouse bitter resentment in Arab hearts and inspire them with the desire to die rather than submit to such an outrage.

The proposed Jewish State would erect a barrier between Arab Palestine and Arab Syria, two areas which are linked by bonds of blood and culture which make them inherently one. This we cannot but regard as a blow aimed at Arab unity . Moreover, in the light of events past and present, we feel certain that a Jewish State in Palestine, overfilled with Jewish immigrants, must have the result of stimulating Jewish aspirations for further expansion. This idea has already been expressed by Zionist leaders. This must expose the Arab territories lo East, North and South to perpetual encroachments, political and economic. The consequent friction could not but grow into an interminable struggle between Arab and Jew which must adversely affect the whole of the Near East.

11 - The Suggestion for a Permanent Mandatory Zone.

The Royal Commission recommended that a permanent British mandatory zone be established, which would include Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth, and a corridor running from Jerusalem to Jaffa. It stressed the necessity of this zone to safeguard the holy places and guarantee freedom of access thereto . It stressed, too, the necessity of this measure to reassure the Moslems of the world that the holy places would not fall under Jewish control.

It does not escape our notice that into this zone falls almost all the remaining fertile parts of the country, today largely in Arab hands, while apart from Jerusalem, the Jews own property of little extent or importance. Some 100,000 Arabs are resident in and about the ancient centres of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Lydda and Ramleh. This “Mandatory Zone”, passing through country largely in Arab hands, is a further measure preventing the territorial unity to which the Arabs aspire. It is with dismay that the Arabs see the sector, which includes the places holiest to Islamic and Christian sentiment, permanently removed from the control of the Arab community. Many villages in the Jerusalem district will be entirely cut off from the centre on which they have always been dependent economically, socially and administratively.

In view, too, of the key-position of Jerusalem in the country’s communications, we regard the Royal Commission’s proposals with misgiving, since the existence of the corridor effectually cuts off the Southern from the Eastern and Northern sections of the proposed Arab State. Isolated from its natural setting in the country, it is clear that Jerusalem with its 75.000 Jews, 25,000 Moslems and 20,000 Christians will from the first be controlled by Jewish interests.

In spite of the Royal Commission’s recommendations that the Balfour Declaration should not have effect in the suggested enclave, we feel, in the light of our past experience, that it would not be difficult for the Jews to turn religious pilgrimage into an excuse for immigration. We cannot but feel that it would be the fate of this area to grow increasingly Jewish and for its Arab population to decline, until at last the time came for its mergence with the Jewish State, and the holy places would be definitely lost.

With regard to Nazareth, being a small district which will be surrounded on all sides by Jewish population, its inhabitants, if they wish to maintain their national characteristics and sentiments, will eventually be forced, by the economic and social pressure of the Jewish environment, to emigrate from their city and abandon this site which is sanctified for them by so many sacred associations.

There is little reassurance in the prospect of British Mandatory control after our experiences of the last 17 years, for we cannot but take our fate under the mandate for Palestine entire as an earnest of what we can expect in the mandatory zone of the future.

The proposed mandatory regime means disappointment, cultural and racial, for the Arab who wishes to continue to reside and seek his livelihood in this zone. English will be the one language for official and legal use, and it is clear that any Arab, who wishes to follow and develop his own national characteristics, will find himself debarred from employment in the mandatory zone on the grounds that he is not willingly co-operating in carrying out the terms of the mandate.

It is, we repeat, anomalous that the Government. which recognizes the justification of the Moslem and Christian Arabs’ anxiety for the future of the Holy Places, while they still form the vast majority in the land, should suppose that they will be reassured by the removal of the Holy Places from the protection of that majority and by the establishment of conditions which must lead to the creation of an overwhelmingly Jewish environment.

12 - The Christians and the Royal Commission's Scheme:

The Royal Commission's Report asserts that the Christians of the world cannot remain unconcerned by what affects their co-religionists and that they desire for them justice and happiness in the Holy Land. The protection of the holiness of Jerusalem and Bethlehem is thus the sacred “trust for civilisation”.

The Arab Higher Committee, which represents the Christian as well as Moslem population of Palestine, feel it is incumbent upon itself to point out that, under the pretext of assuming a sacred trust, the Mandatory Power is sacrificing the interests of the Christian population to those of the Jews and to its own interests as an Imperial Power. The security of the Holy Places has been always adequately safeguarded under Arab and Moslem rule and can only be prejudiced by the establishment of a mandatory regime in which the Jews will undoubtedly be predominant.

The Christians of Palestine, as admitted by the Royal Commission, fully associate themselves with the national aspirations of their Moslem brethren, and believe that Christian interests in general , as well as the security of the Holy Places, would be better safeguarded by national independence than they would be by the establishment of any special regime. It should be noted that under the Royal Commission’s proposal nearly one half of the Christian population will be handed over to the sovereignty of the Jewish State. They will thus be exposed to compulsory expulsion from their homes, and to the abandonment of their property and religious sites.

13 - Imperial Intentions in creating a Permanent Mandatory Zone:

When the impartial observer considers the formation of the proposed mandatory zone and the peculiar arrangements relating to the ports of Jaffa and Akaba it becomes clear that imperial and military considerations, rather than religious, are here at play. We cannot feel that it is by chance that the aerodromes of Lydda and Ramleh and the important railway junction at Lydda, where lines of Egypt, Haifa, Jerusalem and Jaffa meet, fall into the mandatory zone. The strategic value of Akaba with the potential command of the Suez Canal and the Red Sea is self-evident. Although the precise relationship between the Akaba and the Holy Places Enclaves is not clearly defined, it would appear that this arrangement will involve mandatory surveillance over the whole Southern part of the suggested Arab State. Wherein then lies the gift of independence? The Arabs are fully prepared to discuss reasonably with Great Britain the question of safeguarding her imperial interests and communications as in Iraq and Egypt. There appears, therefore, to be no justification from either religious or strategic reasons for the establishment of a permanent mandate in the centre of Palestine, including the capital city and the places which are so sacred to the Arab and Moslem world. Nor is it to be supposed that the Arabs, who resisted for the last 18 years a temporary mandate, will ever consent to submit to a permanent mandate in its place.

14 - The Arab State:

The Royal Commission has made the further proposal that the part of Palestine, that remains after the Jewish State and the Permanent Mandatory zone have been delimited, be attached to Transjordan and a single Arab State so created. The Arabs welcome any legitimate proposal or event that tends to the fulfilment of their aspiration for independence and union with other Arab countries ; and they appreciate the tribute paid them by the Royal Commission as to their fitness to rule and as to the strength of the nationalist spirit among them. But they cannot and will not agree to surrendering their most productive land to allow of the establishment of a Jewish State and a mandatory zone which are both in conflict with their aspirations and which threaten the existence of half the Arabs of Palestine. The comparison which the Royal Commission makes with a “surgical operation” suggests to us the thought that an amputated limb dies even though the trunk with the vital organs may live. The Arabs regard what is to be left to them of Palestine as such a limb. It is a mountainous and barren region, for the most part arid and unproductive, restricted by artificial frontiers on three sides. In agriculture it is proposed that the most productive land is to go to the Jews, while in industry and commerce the centres of life and opportunity {such as Haifa Port, the railways and the greater part of the newly constructed roads) are also to be withdrawn from the Arabs.

Deprived of its historic right of protecting the Holy Places, the Arab State would lose with it also the means of livelihood derived from the presence of pilgrims and tourists. The Arab State will further be deprived of the main agricultural industry, namely the citrus fruit belt, while it will also lose in Galilee the principal centre of olive-growing, and in the plains the important watermelon crop.

With regard to the population, while repudiating the idea of partition the Arab Higher Committee finds it impossible to discover what fair principle can divide a country holding 950,000 Arabs in such a way that only 570,000 of them are included in the Arab State. Nor can they discover what is meant to be the fate of Jaffa Port, a phenomenon surely without parallel in that it is asserted to be part of a State from which it is cut off to North and South by the proposed Jewish State and to the East by the mandatory zone. Its inhabitants are to be separated from the greater part of their orange groves and estates which are included in the Jewish area. The so-called Arab Port is even to be forced to apply the tariff of the Mandatory zone and not that of the State to which it nominally belongs.

The Royal Commission, it is true, has displayed a superficial concern for the prospects and welfare of this State, which it realizes must be bankrupt from its inception. They, therefore, propose that in addition to a grant of two million pounds to Transjordan in lieu of the present annual grant, the British Treasury should make an additional grant for the purpose of developing irrigation and land settlement in the event of the so-called transfer of population being carried out.

The poverty to which the Arab State would be reduced by the loss of the territory allotted to the Jewish State and the Mandatory Zone, is further indicated by the proposal that the Arab State should receive an annual subvention from the Jewish State. Apart from the fact that Jewish finance in Palestine does not inspire us with confidence as to the possibility of realizing this grant, such a system would lay the Arab State open to the continual threat of bankruptcy, and constitute in fact Jewish control over the allegedly independent Arab State. For unless it identified itself with the policy of the Jewish State in all things, every pre­ text would be used for withholding this subvention. Apart from the fact that to accept any such grant would be a degradation which no Arab Government could with honour accept, we take the whole of this scheme of grants and subventions as proving beyond question that the British Government recognizes that the proposed Arab State would not possess the minimum resources necessary to support the population it is proposed to force into its narrow limits.

15 - The Arab Repudiation of the Partition Scheme:

ln the light of the above statements it cannot seem strange that the Arabs of Palestine, of whatever party or class, forcibly repudiate the partition scheme in its entirety. Nor can it be considered surprising that in this they are supported by all the Arab and Islamic countries in the world, since this scheme is considered in such circles as one of the greatest catastrophes that could befall the Arab race in territories revered both as fatherland and as holy shrine. Moreover it would seem obvious that if Palestine has been for the last 18 years the scene of disturbances arising out of the fears of the Arab people at the Jewish invasion and the British imperial policy which has sponsored it, it is only natural to expect that the struggle will be intensified if the Jews receive immediately many times the extent of the territory which they have been able to acquire in the 15 years during which the mandate has been fully implemented.

The Arab Higher Committee is reluctant to believe that the Members of the Royal Commission and the Secretary of State for the Colonies do not recognize and appreciate the dangers which the Partition Scheme involves; or that they do not appreciate the effect it would have, not only on the Arabs, Moslem and Christian, of Palestine but on those of other countries. We, therefore, assert without hesitation or doubt that the peace for which the Royal Commission declares it is working and which it calls an “indispensable boon” cannot be established in this country by a continuance of these abortive experiments. We cannot but wonder what are the real motives for the ins1stance on further “unique political experiments” to fulfil a fantastic political project which was born of Jewish sufferings in countries for which the Arab world has not the least responsibility.

16 - The Palliatives.

As an alternative to t he Partition plan, the Royal Commission has made proposals which it describes as '”palliatives”. The Arab Higher Committee is in agreement with the Royal Commission that these measures afford no possibility of a permanent settlement of the Palestine Problem, while the Committee takes note that certain of these proposals constitute a partial recognition of the justice of two of t h e principal Arab claims.

17 - The Natural Solution of the Palestine Problem:

The Arab Higher Committee bases the claim to complete independence of the Arab people of Palestine 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 promise made to the Jews about two years later.

The Arab Higher Committee, therefore, urges that the only solution compatible with justice and a true desire for peace in the land must be based on the following principles:-

1) The recognition of the right of the Arabs to complete independence in their own land.

2) The cessation of the experiment of the Jewish National Home.

3) The cessation of the British mandate and its replacement by a treaty similar to treaties existing between Britain and Iraq, Britain and Egypt, and between France and Syria, creating in Palestine a Sovereign State.

4) The immediate cessation of all Jewish immigration and of land-sales to Jews pending the negotiation and conclusion of the Treaty.

The Arabs are prepared to negotiate, in a reasonable spirit, the conditions under which reasonable British interests shall be safeguarded; to approve the necessary guarantees for the preservation and right of access to all Holy Places and for the protection of all legitimate rights of the Jewish population or other minorities in Palestine.

The Arab Higher Committee expresses the sincere hope that the British Government and the League of Nations will aid them by all the powerful means at their command to bring the period of uncertainty and disturbance in this Holy Land to an end, and help them to achieve the only just and natural solution of the problem which has perplexed this Holy Land and its people ever since the termination of the Great War.

In this spirit of deep and true concern for our country, we beg to remain with respect,

 

For THE ARAB HIGHER COMMITTEE,

President, MOH. AMIN HUSSEINI

Secretary, FUAD SABA

 

Source: “Memorandum Submitted by the Arab Higher Committee to the Permanent Mandates Commission and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Dated July 23^rd 1937”. [Brochure]