Responce Paper - the Palestine Royal Commission Report

 RESPONSE PAPER

The Peel Commission Report

by

Godfree Jones

Presented to

Professor Winston Alexander

Political Science 328

The Arab-Israeli Conflict

University of Washington

Seattle, Washington

December 2, 2010

        The Palestine Royal Commission Report, frequently referred to as the Peel Commission was appointed by Great Britain in May of 1937 to investigate the cause of Arab resistance in then British mandate Palestine. After the commission finished conducting their investigation they came to the conclusion that there was no way that the tensions between the Zionists and the Palestinian Arabs could be resolved and as a result, they mandate would have to be partitioned to allow territory for both sides.  In this paper I will present a different opinion, suggesting that the Yashuv and Palestinian Arabs could have been organized into a functioning democratic nation state, provided that the institution was organized with proper allocation of power to either party.  A short overview of the situation according to the Peel Commission and a more detailed synopsis of their solution will precede this argument to provide a backdrop. Following the presented solution an analysis of its viability and outside factors which would have added to its success will be presented.

        When the Peel Commission presented their report in July of 1937, it concluded that the only way to solve the tension of Palestinian Arabs and Zionist Jews was to partition the mandate into two separate parts, allotting each group a part of the partition. According to the commission this would release the British government from the war-time promises they had made to both Jews and Arabs concerning the leadership of the mandate. The reasons presented by the commission for the gaping divide between Zionist Jews and Palestinian Arabs included a myriad of problems including class, ethnicity, numerical domination of the geographical space, education, and namely incompatible aspirations for nationality.  Discouraged by these distinct differences in the population, the commission wrote off any chance of national assimilation as impossible, suggesting that without partitioning and separating the two groups, violence would ensue.         

        In order to prevent further conflict, the commission suggested that the two groups follow the suit of other regional political powers such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, and Iraq embracing sovereign self-governing statehood. Whether only to prevent conflict, or to continue maintaining some sphere of influence over the region, the commission outlined that treaty negotiations should be overseen by the British, and that holy places in the area be left in neutral British control. The commission suggested that this would solve the “Palestine problem” as both groups would realize and come to terms with the fact that part of the territory was better than none of the territory and be content with the partitioning laid out by the commission.

        While the factual elements the Peel commission may have led the British to the conclusion that the only option was to divide the mandate, I espouse a different opinion. Had the British been willing to put forth more effort toward integrating the two societies into a self-sustaining integrated democracy the result would have been much better for all parties concerned.  While simply throwing the political powers from each group into a government would have proven disastrous. However, if a governmental system had been set up establishing each side as a political party in a democratic system which recognized that both parties were simply working for the betterment of their constituents, a successful and peaceful agreement might have been achieved.

        Any potential government forged from the starting conditions which the mandate faced would have to be democratically elected though free and fair elections. This element is key in preventing violence, as people who feel that they have no say often feel they must express their opinion through violent means. Additionally a system of checks and balances provided though a multi-branch style of government, and especially a bicameral legislature, would be important to ensure that one faction in government did not overpower the other. A bicameral legislature, modeled after the United States, with one side controlling national finances, and the other side controlling military action, would have helped prevent aggression by the new state as it would have made it much harder for one group to authorize the use of force, as both halves of legislature would need to support it.