The Peel Commission Partition Plan July 1937

In the 1930s, tensions between the Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine steadily deteriorated as Jewish immigration and land purchase escalated. An Arab General Strike in 1936 was followed by an uprising led by prominent Arab clans, the Nashashibis and Husseinis. Lord Peel was called upon to examine methods to resolve the conflict. His Commission recommended partition, with the Jews to be allocated land in the north and along the littoral, the Arabs in the south and on the west bank of the Jordan. There would be a permanent, externally administered, mandate for a central corridor including Jerusalem and extending to the Mediterranean at Jaffa. Transfers of population (mainly Arab) and land ownership would be entailed. Jewish representatives gave tentative support to partition, but not the precise delimitation proposed. The Arabs were fiercely opposed: they (correctly) protested that the Jews had been allocated the most productive land, and fought on.