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
