Talk:Peel Commission

Added Peel Commission definition

I attempted to be concise and balanced, while avoiding ahistorical reductionism. I welcome educated opinion from all sides. Thanks. --El_C 18:01, 29 Aug 2004.

• Reverted back to the original sentence structure. See my comments here for further details. Kept the Great Uprising addition though, which is both useful and important, and something I should have thought of. Thanks for that. El_C

• Those additions are useful, well done. But please heed my request as per retaining the article's first paragraph. Also, again, please cease from Americanizing the dates, as a courtesy to the original author (me! ). El_C

• Well, as soon as I posted it it was changed back to the original. I'm so confused. The additions were good in substance, but some of the the form was a bit lacking, to be honest. El_C

Please let me try to restore a few paragraphs you inadvertently (I hope :))) removed. As for the dates, AFAIK the format is (or should be) consistent throughout WP, or be configurable via prefs. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 07:21, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Okay, I revised your additions. Cursory revision, but I tried to give it serious attention.

1. Changed the dates back to British (which incidentally is what you will see if you actually read the Report of the Peel Commission ). English has both styles, it varies. A recently read a book by the former American Ambassador to Zambia, he uses the British style. I don't think it is appropriate for it to be a date competition, or worse, date competition-revision, from American to British or vice versa. It is all very silly. So once again, with all due respect, please do not change the dates in articles that I author to American style. I am accustomed to British, and it makes it easier for me to improve when reading my own words.

2. Some grammatical changes. Not many, most were minor. For example, projected. The reader assumes that the reference is to a projected state, since s/he just read it being recommended by Lord Peel. Or flatly. Either that flatly is qualified, or rejected (a pretty strong word in itself) is fine. The qualification is even more pressing for the Jewish side, as opinion was less unified, so I added an excerpt from the Ben Guryon's proposal adopted by the 20th Jewish Congress with respect to the Peel Partition [um, this sort of went into no.3 (content), sorry.].

3. Most significantly, took out the period 1938-onwards. Those belong in another article(s). The Arabs rejected the Peel Partition and the 20th Jewish Congress said it was unacceptable but wanted further negotiations to ongo. And that's it for the Peel Commission. The Peel Partition, for example, could be its own article. There, you could speak about the Woodhead Commission viz. and in relation to the Peel Partition. We are only noting here the reasons for - work done by - recommendations of - reactions of parties to - action taken or lack thereof. El_C

• Additional revision for the first paragraph. Took out outbreak and Palestinian Arabs and date for the Great Uprising. It was a Great uprising, we tell the reader, so either s/he knows about it or clicks the link and finds all about it. Less petinent to get into the Great Uprising while we are introducing the Peel Commission. Suffice that it is wikilinked and it is noted as the impetus. Simpler does not always mean less comprehensive (though, on the same token, nor does it always mean more lucid). El_C

I have moved the text into White Paper of 1939, which should have been created long ago. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 22:59, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Jewish side was to receive a territorially smaller portion

The usual literally true but misleading Z------ slant. The numerically larger non-Jewish side was to receive the territorially larger but economically undesirable Negev.24.64.166.191 07:32, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

As the editor who authored that, I find it to be a good point. Please see my latest edit. But, it wasn't a Zionist slant, I just overlooked that, I'm not sure exactly why, but I was driven by no such motive, that would be antithetical to my worldview. El_C 08:21, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

"The population exchange, if carried out, would have involved the transfer of approximately 225,000 Arabs and 1,250 Jews. [2]"

Zero,

Please give the quote from the report that sais this. This is your OR, the report use the number 225 in a different context and sais census is not accurate and there are 125,000 jews in mixed cities. altogether this is total speculation from you to wrote what you wrote. Zeq 05:23, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Here is the quote (with some bold from me):

Owing to the fact that there has been no census since 1931 it is impossible to calculate with any precision the distribution of population between the Arab and Jewish areas; but, according to an approximate estimate, in the area allocated to the Jewish State (excluding the urban districts to be retained for a period under Mandatory Administration) there are now about 225,000 Arabs. In the area allocated to the Arab State there are only about 1,250 Jews; but there are about 125,000 Jews as against 85,000 Arabs in Jerusalem and Haifa.

Here is the explanation: The partition plan had a Jewish State, an Arab State, and a Mandate area. The urban areas mentioned (including Jerusalem and Haifa) were in the Mandate area. The population transfer plan was to apply to the Jewish and Arab states. It was presumed that at some time in the future the disposition of the Mandate area would be agreed by all parties but the details were left to the future (no population transfer planned yet). Incidentally, some maps of the plan show Haifa in the Jewish State, but from section 7 of the report you can see it was in the Mandate area. The same two numbers, 225,000 and 1,250, appear in the book of Teveth that I referenced on the page. He calls it "an exchange in name only". --Zero 05:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

This is all your explnations. The report itself does not say what you wrote. Zeq 07:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

3 issues you ignore are:

• "for a period" (about the areas that would remain under mandate)
• "no census since 1931"
• The whole "if would be carried out" is your OR.

Bottomline is that nothing in the report itself claim what you understood from it. Zeq 06:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

"For a period" is covered by what I said. This period was not specified, and what would happen after that period was also not specified. "No census since 1931" is covered by the word "approximately", which I copied from the report. The estimates were made by the very professional Palestine Department of Statistics. Your last comment is incomprehensible. Anyway I can cite Teveth for support. Probably you know that he is not exactly a left-winger. --Zero 07:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

"History"-section

I kind of automatically started to wikify this section when I came across it. Then I started looking more closely: the whole section is a copy-and-paste from erez.israel.net or shalomjerusalem or any such site. (Many of these sites have the same text). I definitely think that we should have a section on what led up to the report, (a "History" section, or a "pre-Peel Report"-section) but a better sourced (and more neutral) is needed.

Also: is the "Lord Peel" here related to, or perhaps same as the William Wellesley Peel, 1st Earl Peel? Does anybody know? Regards, Huldra 20:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Huldra,

The wording seems NPOV so the surprize is that such a site has an NPOV description of the events. Maybe they took it from Wikipedia ??? In Any case, please suggest different wording. Zeq 10:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Zeq dear; it was you who added that section on 14. March ;-D ......Don´t you remember where you copied it from?? Regards, Huldra 18:52, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Is the text as it is is NPOV ? if not what need to change ? Is it not accurate ? if so what need to change ? Zeq 19:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea as to whether the text is accurate or not; it is not sourced. I cannot easily check. And that is my point, Zeq; we need to source it! (Also: a sentence like "Chaim Weizmann made a speech on behalf of the Jews" begs the question: When? Where?) Regards, Huldra 19:33, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Huldra, I added a source that describe these events. If you find other version of the events please add. If you object any of the text feel free to remove. If you find anything hat is not accurate or not NPOV please feel free to fix. Zeq 11:29, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Ehhhhh, well, I guess a reference to the "World Zionist Organization" is better than nothing.....now at least readers know where the inf. is comming from ;-P Zeq; if I´m going to work on this article it would be adding a lot more from the Commissions report. Much more interesting, IMO. Regards, Huldra 22:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Peel Commission map

Please stop reverting it to the old and incorrect map. Plan A of the Peel Commission envisioned Nazareth as an international territory, Jaffa as an Arab territory, and other things. If you have a reliable source claiming otherwise, please post it. Also a PD map should be used in either case, so if you can indeed provide the source, I will probably create one with the other boundaries. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 03:48, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The current map places Tel-Aviv in the Arab state - that doesn't make sense at all, it wasn't what the commission recomended. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.72.45.107 (talk) 15:54, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Arab signature

I was in Nablus last summer and heard a rumour stating that the Arabs had accepted the partition and signed. Someone (either the British or Jews) then blacked out the signature and claimed the Arabs had rejected it. I realise that Arabs (and Israelis, for that matter) are keen on blaming everyone else for whatever went wrong, but could anyone who heard similar stories please let me know? I will go back this summer, and try to get some more specific information that would make this rumour falsifiable. Jacob 03:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

In private talks, the moderate leader El-Nashashibi espressed agreed to consider this idea, but the major Palestinian leader, Husseini, opposed any form of partition firmly.

On a similar note, the current text: "The Arab leadership' in Palestine rejected the plan", is unclear on who are the leaders, does it refers to anyone other that the Arab Higher Committee ?--PLNR (talk) 03:47, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Image

The image isn't correct: Nazareth wasn't part of the mandate. See also: here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mijnnaamgaatunietaan (talk • contribs) 14:32, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Have the Jews rejected the Peel plan?

From all I've read so far, both sides rejected the plan, yet in this article, it's only clearly stated that Arab leadership rejected it, while it's stated that Jewish opinion was divided. However this is not backed up and the only Jewish response given (Zionist Congress) is also a rejection. Either it should be made clear that both sides rejected the plan, or evidence should be presented to support the assertion that Jewish opinion was divided. And in a meaningful way of course, because obviously at the individual level, there's always divided opinion, also among the Arabs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.217.228.51 (talk) 17:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

In two articles History of Israel and United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, Ykantor has edited in identical terms the section dealing with the Peel Commission. The part now reads as follows:-

The 2 main Jewish leaders...had convinced the Zionist Congress to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation

Unfortunately none of the references cited are linked and therefore easily verifiable. The identical edits to the two article are inconsistent with this article which provides:-

The Twentieth Zionist Congress in Zurich (3-16 August 1937) 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".

Unfortunately the reference Timeline: 1937 led to a dead link. Is anyone able to resolve this inconsistency, preferably by a linked reference? Trahelliven (talk) 02:26, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

While reading a Wiki article, I was surprised that the Jews had supposedly rejected Peel recommendations since I remembered they accepted it. A search revealed that the Jews eventually accepted it indeed. Interestingly, some Wikipedia articles has already said that the Jews accepted it. Anyway, I found few citation of Benni Morris and William Roger Louis and quoted them. I have changed it in more articles. My eventual sentence is:

• The 2 main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and Ben Gurion had convinced the Zionist Congress to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation.
• concerning on line references, then take for example the book link from my reference: e.g. The book link is = http://books.google.co.il/books/about/The_Birth_of_the_Palestinian_Refugee_Pro.html?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&redir_esc=y .If you click on the link, it shows you a book summary page. if you type "peel" inside the "search inside" box there, it will show you the relevant pages (some of them not visible).
• I have noted your good English. I'll thank you if you rectify my mistakes. Ykantor (talk) 08:23, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I put the full text of the resolution of the 20th Zionist Congress here. If you read it, you will see how difficult it is to portray it as acceptance. Really the most you can say is that partition was not rejected outright as many delegates wanted. Morris says "the Zionist movement, after much agonising, accepted the principle of partition and the proposals as a basis for negotiation" (Birth2, p11). Well, the sting is in the word "principle"; they didn't accept the Peel Commission's partition plan but only the principle of partition. In fact even that much is hard to get out of the resolution, although it is a correct statement of Ben Gurion's position. Zero^talk 10:18, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Well it is rather embarrassing. I have quoted few good sources e.g.

• benni morris, birth revisited, p 11 "while the Zionist movement, after much agonising, accepted the principle of partition and the proposals as a basis for negotiation"
• benni morris, birth revisited, p. 49 "In the end, after bitter debate, the Congress equivocally approved –by a vote of 299 to 160 – the Peel recommendations as a basis for further negotiation."

I wrote according to those sources. Do you think it should be modified? Ykantor (talk) 11:52, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Here is how the Woodhead Commission report (p.18) introduces it: "The Royal Commission's proposals were received by the Jews with mixed feelings, and it soon became apparent that deep cleavages of opinion existed among the various Jewish parties, both in Palestine and elsewhere, as to the acceptability of partition in any form. The whole question was debated at length at the Twentieth Zionist Congress which was held at Zurich in August, 1937, and the resolution ultimately adopted by the Congress represented a compromise between the supporters and opponents of partition." That seems pretty accurate. Reading the resolution carefully, you can see that it does not reject the idea of partition. It only rejects the particular partition scheme that Peel recommended along with many of its features. So it is a sort of acceptance in principle but not in detail. Calling it a compromise is correct since many delegates wanted to reject Peel outright (as the Arabs did) and others wanted to accept Peel's recommended scheme more positively. It isn't surprising that historians can't seem to decide how to summarise it. Zero^talk 12:49, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with every word of yours. In the meantime i found a good description of the Zionist decision: at the end of the congress, Hayim Greenberg, who had originally opposed partition, confessed that he still had grave doubts about whether the division of Palestine was practical. However, he was convinced that it should at least be attempted.

The Twentieth Zionist Congress passed a resolution that seemed to straddle the partition issue, but which actually handed a victory to Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, and the pro-partitionists. While labeling the Peel proposal unacceptable. the congress authorized the Zionist Executive to negotiate with the British in hopes of winning better boundaries for the proposed Jewish state. The resolution, however, prohibited the Executive from agreeing to any particular British proposal without first getting the approval of another World Zionist Congress.

The Zurich resolution did not prevent the outbreak of an intense conflict over partition, which threatened to divide American Zionists. Shortly after returning from Zurich, Dr. David de Sola Pool, a respected rabbi and scholar, tried to (Aaron Berman, Nazism, the Jews and American Zionism: 1933 - 1948, 1996, p. 58).

BTW Although Woodhead quotation here seems OK, I have read that Whitehall told Woodhead in advance to kill the partition. Ykantor (talk) 15:04, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I added it to Woodhead Commission a few years ago, from a 1991 paper of Galnoor. However a 1995 book of the same author has a weaker version: "The commission was secretly told that, in accordance with the cabinet's decision, it was within the commission's authority to recommend that "no workable scheme could be produced." That is to say, the government told the commission that it was prepared to accept a recommendation to retract the partition recommendations of the Peel commission." It is quite different. Zero^talk 15:33, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I found it there. Thanks.

What is your opinion concerning the Jewish acceptance of Peel plan?. I have modified accordingly more than 15 articles. It will take me some time to re-modify it. Ykantor (talk) 16:04, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

One sided editng

A massive point-of-view push was recently done here, with no consensus and no discussion, and was rightly reverted by Monochrome Monitor. I won't address all of it now, but commenting on just the selective and misleading quoting of Tessler,let me repeat what I wrote here: You quote Tessler's "the Peel Commission’s report was rejected by the protagonists" while ignoring the following "the congress did not reject the principle of partition". This is a gross violation of WP:NPOV and editors doing such things should not be allowed to edit this article. Epson Salts (talk) 22:07, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I generally try not to get into conflicts with him since he believes he's right ipso facto. He will make you seek consensus for your reversion in talk because his edits are the "stable version".--Monochrome_Monitor 00:58, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

The argument is not whether the principle of partition was rejected (it is obvious that Jews would have far less problems with partition than would the overwhelming Arab majority, for the former stood the gain, the latter to lose). The issue is what was the reaction to the Peel Commission's findings. We now have 'Arabs rejected it' 'The Jewish leadership accepted partition with mixed feelings as an opportunity for sovereignty.' The latter phrase neatly sidesteps the fact that the Jewish side found it 'unacceptable', and indeed rubs the contrast in by using the verb 'accepted' which the specific Zionist Congress disowned with the adjective, 'unacceptable'. That was why I reformulated it, taking into account the prior evidence given by both Zero and Ykantor.Nishidani (talk) 13:22, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I guess I ought to post on your page my list of the number of occasions, and I don't track your edits, you have within this month damaged an article by impetuous reverting of significant material, listing only what I have observed of your behavior, unchanged, at articles on my watchlist.

The above is a matey collegial note about 'him' suggesting you know why I edit, my motivations, and my bad faith. Note that the editor who comforts you with a further revert has, despite the suspicions that surround his presence here, tracked me successively over three pages to articles he has never edited, in order to revert or readjust (at Robert Bitker he made a copyright violation my phrasing tried to avoid).

For the record, unlike yourself and Epsom Salts's WP:Hounding, I came to this page as a natural follow through from the discussion at Black Sunday, 1937. On reading it I noted a gross WP:LEDE/WP:NPOV violation.

The lead has 184 words devoted to the Arab rejection, and 91 words devoted to a simplified caricature of an ostensible Jewish 'acceptance.

I edited this so that the lead would be balanced in a correct proportion of expositions of the two positions. Thus we obtained 85 words for the Arab position and 82 words for the Jewish position -Parity of treatment.

I further removed the material most favourable to the Arab position out of sight, right down the page (re citrus etc). Both you and the other chap restored the imbalance, andsaa, as happens, reintroduced the citrus material detail which, like the stuff re Ben-Gurion's son, does not belong to the lead. So you both were engaged in a blind revert of a duly meditated balancing edit, one that, yes, altered the reference to the World Zionist Congress decision on the basis of the following evidence, using Tesller who used the word 'protagonists' that Epsom Salts objects to, but whose opinion is corroborated by several major sources.

• 'the Peel Commission’s report was rejected by the protagonists.’Mark Tessler, History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Indiana University Press, 2009 2nd.ed. p.242.
• The main Zionist leaders favoured acceptance of any Jewish state, however small, but the Zionist Congress rejected it in the hope of securing improvements by further negotiation.' J.P.D. Dunbabin, The Post-Imperial Age: The Great Powers and the Wider World, Routledge 2014 p.247
• The Zionist Congress , in a canny compromise, voted to reject partition based on the borders proposed by the commission but offered to negotiate further on all issues.' Milton Viorst, Zionism:The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal, St Martin’s Press 2016 p.136
• Neither the Jews nor the Arabs accepted this proposal; the Zionists concealed their rejection by demanding further negotiations.' Haim Gerber, Remembering and Imagining Palestine: Identity and Nationalism from the Crusades to the Present, Palgrave Macmillan 2008 p.140
• The resolution reflected both the majority opinion at the Congress that rejected the Peel Commission's conclusions, but also the minority position that rejected the very idea of partition. The resolution, the notes explained, rejected the conclusion that the Mandate for Palestine could not be implemented, and the conclusion stemming from it that a new arrangement based on partition of the land had to be found. . The resolution adopted by the Twentieth Zionist Congress thus did not make a case for or against partition, but rather deferred the final decision to a later time.' Shulamit Eliash - The Harp and the Shield of David: Ireland, Zionism and the State of Israel, Routledge, 2007 p.22
• While rejecting the specific proposals of the Peel Commission, the congress expressed readiness, in principle, to consider a better partition proposal.' Itamar Rabinovich, ‎Jehuda Reinharz (eds.) Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society,Politics and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present Brandeis University Press 2008 p.44.
• The Twentieth Zionist Congress articulated its rejection by stating, “The partition plan proposed by the Peel Commission is not to be accepted.' Elizabeth Matthews,The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Parallel Discourses, Routledge 2011 p.67

I.e. you cannot write accept when so many sources say reject. The idea of partition was accepted but the actual proposals for it were rejected

This is a last warning. So desisat from this impetuous removal of information you dislike, in particular without prior talk page participation, which got you into deep water before you were placed under monitoring, or you will once more be back where you started, with a less mild sanction that the series that you so far have received.Nishidani (talk) 12:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

You made a bold change to a long standing stable version of the article. It was reverted, citing policy reasons (NPOV). At that point, you are required to discuss your proposed changes. Instead, you edit-warred them back into the article without a word of discussion, let alone consensus. That behavior should earn you a topic ban.

You claim you came to this article “as a natural follow through from the discussion at Black Sunday, 1937”, yet when I do the exact same thing, having first interacted with you at that god-awful POV travesty of an article, you accuse me of hounding you. Bad faith, and another reason you should not be editing here.

You write “The idea of partition was accepted but the actual proposals for it were rejected” – and this is exactly what the article said, prior to your POV push – “The Congress decided to reject the specific borders recommended by the Peel Commission, but empowered its executive to negotiate a more favorable plan for a Jewish State in Palestine”

It is trivially easy to compile an equivalent list, of high quality sources that use ”accepted” or “agreed”, e.g;

• "The Zionist Organization accepted it in principle" Benjamin Pogrund (10 July 2014). Drawing Fire: Investigating the Accusations of Apartheid in Israel. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 31. ISBN 978-1-4422-2684-5.
• "The resolution of the Zionist Congress in August 1937 was to adopt partition on principle". I. Galnoor (1991). "Territorial partition of Palestine—the 1937 decision". Political Geography Quarterly. 10 (4): 382–404.
• "... the Jewish Agency, the political umbrella organization that included Haganah, accepted it as a step toward the Jewish state." James Gannon, Military Occupations in the Age of Self-determination: The History Neocons Neglected, ABC-CLIO, 2008 pp.32-33.
• ‘…the congress accepted readiness, in principle” , Itamar Rabinovich; Jehuda Reinharz (2008). Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present. UPNE. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-87451-962-4.
• “it did agree in principle to the idea of partition”, Gregory S. Mahler; Alden R.W. Mahler (10 September 2009). The Arab-Israeli Conflict: An Introduction and Documentary Reader. Routledge. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-135-24887-1.
• “The Jews accepted the Peel’s commission Suggestion of a two-state solution; Alan M. Dershowitz, “Countering Challenges to Israel’s Legitimacy” (2011) Israel’s Rights as a Nation-State in International Diplomacy, p. 162
• “The Arab side totally rejected this proposal while the Zionists accepted it” Arab-Israeli Conflict Transformed, The: Fifty Years of Interstate and Ethnic Crises, Hemda Ben-Yehuda, Shmuel Sandler; SUNY Press, 2012, p.122

So if I were to play your little game, I'd tell you " you cannot write reject when so many sources say accept.. But luckily there's no need to play games, as we have policy. You made a bold edit, and it was reverted. per WP:BRD and WP:ONUS, you now need to discuss. If you have specific proposal for how the article should be changed, present it here and we'll see if has consensus. Epson Salts (talk) 23:56, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

• (a)Read WP:BRD. It is not a wiki policy, and citing it is pointless.

(b) I did other editors the courtesy of providing a link for verifiability of the claim in the cited source. You do not. Try to do so. It is very simple. Otherwise I have to take on trust what you report, whereas you can check what I report, and need not take my word on trust, an invidious disparity. Dershowitz is trash by the way.

(c) To illustrate why your unlinked evidence is not cogent, note that we both cite the one text. I quote it with a link:

While rejecting the specific proposals of the Peel Commission, the congress expressed readiness, in principle, to consider a better partition proposal.' Itamar Rabinovich, ‎Jehuda Reinharz (eds.) Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society,Politics and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present Brandeis University Press 2008 p.44.

All you do, without linking, is quote a snippet out of context.

'the congress accepted readiness, in principle.'

This is deceptive practice, and it applies to the rest, since you won't link to them.

(d)My major reason for readjusting the lead is that it violates WP:LEDE summary style because it contains excessive details for one side and the other As my statistics show, it gives double the space to Arab rejections than to the ostensible Jewish 'acceptance'.

(e) When you have sources clashing on reporting the same event, you cannot single out for one POV the wording you like ('accept'), when it is contradicted by the other sources that state 'reject'. To do so is to engage in POV pushing and source manipulation.

In the prior discussion User:Zero0000 and Ykantor came to some form of agreement, re the Zionist position (Zero alluded to the background evidence of similar clashes in formulating a United Arab front of Rejection)

I put the full text of the resolution of the 20th Zionist Congress here. If you read it, you will see how difficult it is to portray it as acceptance. Really the most you can say is that partition was not rejected outright as many delegates wanted. Morris says "the Zionist movement, after much agonising, accepted the principle of partition and the proposals as a basis for negotiation" (Birth2, p11). Well, the sting is in the word "principle"; they didn't accept the Peel Commission's partition plan but only the principle of partition. In fact even that much is hard to get out of the resolution, although it is a correct statement of Ben Gurion's position. .. So it is a sort of acceptance in principle but not in detail. Calling it a compromise is correct since many delegates wanted to reject Peel outright (as the Arabs did) and others wanted to accept Peel's recommended scheme more positively. It isn't surprising that historians can't seem to decide how to summarise it.

All sources concur on this basic factual outline. The only difference is how one represents this. We had

The Arabs opposed the partition plan and condemned it unanimously, The Jewish leadership accepted partition with mixed feelings as an opportunity for sovereignty.'

When I read that, I thought:'Arabs and the Jewish leadership' are juxtaposed, a total uninstitutional ethnos vs the leadership in a Zionist Congress, whose views were in the minority. What NPOV required was rejection by The Arab Higher Committee,and whatever words you wish to associate with the official declaration of The World Zionist Congress. This seems to me to be obviously defective. I thus rewrote-

Despite some support by the Nashashibi family of notables and Jordan's King Abdullah,[5] the Arabs opposed the partition plan and condemned it unanimously. . . The Jewish leadership found the plan partition 'unacceptable'[7][8][9]but moderates saw in it an an historic opportunity for sovereignty over some part of Palestine.

This is balanced for both sides, respecting all sources mustered, and avoids the caricature in a lead which devotes double the space to Arabs than it does to Zionists. Perhaps we need an RfC. Can any reader post one for these two alternatives?Nishidani (talk) 12:28, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

I noted dissent in both ranks,

Someone's errant snippet?

Now about all these quotes. We all know that using the right keywords in Google we can bring up sources matching our requirements. What we need more of around here is a much higher bar on source selection. For a topic that is as well-studied as this, the first thing we should do is cross off the list every source that only devotes a few words or a sentence to the question. There go a large number of the sources listed above. Then we should cross off the list people who aren't actually historians or who are better known as activists. There goes Dershowitz (are you kidding?). Amongst those left — qualified historians who go into the details — there really isn't that much disagreement. Galnoor stands out as the only source brought so far that is based on every little scrap of evidence that he could find. Other historians who clearly studied the subject in depth can be cited too. Those who just mentioned it in passing should not be cited at all. Zero^talk 14:43, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Incidentally it is wrong to single out the Revisionists as the only Zionist group who rejected partition outright. Galnoor gives the voting record for the resolution and explains that the Mizrahi movement unanimously rejected partition and so did Hashomer Hatzair and the State Party. Mostly it passed because Mapai supported it as a bloc and they had more delegates than anyone else. Zero^talk 14:43, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Specialist sources, in sum. Yes, I'm fine with that. I am making 2 basic proposals as a follow up to the Ykantor-Zero debate. Since we know the Zionist decision was fraught, and pass this off as 'accepted', while we know the Arab debate was quite intense, with dissent, and expand on their objections at length in the lead, we have a failure to balance the narrative. Secondly, there's far too much detail in the lead. Details like citrus loss (presciently, after how Hajj Khalil al-Banna's massive citrus fields were seized in 1948) are there to make the Arab rejection look motivated on rational grounds, rather than echo the Abba Ebanish 'the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity' POV. I'm open to suggestions. The problem is not simply 'accepted/rejected' but the proper balanced modulation of the lead.Nishidani (talk) 15:23, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

NPOV means representing what the sources say properly and with due weight, not giving equal time to Jews and Arabs. The vast majority of sources agree that the mainstream Jewish establishment accepted with reservations via vote (the revisionists rejected it outright) and the Arabs rejected with little dissent. That is what this article should say per Wikipedia policy. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:37, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

(a) Where do you get the vast majority of sources?

(b)We are not talking about 'the mainstream Jewish establishment' vs 'the Arabs'. We are talking about formal positions taken by The World Zionist Congress and the Arab Higher Committee.

(b) Try to be constructive. There is a genuine problem with the WP:Lede violation. Have you any suggestions.Nishidani (talk) 19:20, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

(a) Are you saying that's not true?

(b) Says who? The lead is supposed to summarize the whole article, and the article is supposed to include all relevant groups, not only the WZO and AHC.

(another b) My suggestion is cutting down the crap and leaving just the main points in the lead, and elaborating in the body. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:31, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

(a)I see no evidence for your statement. As the prior discussion with two editors, Ykantor and Zero, who actually study the scholarship in depth, shows this is recognized as a 'historians can't seem to decide how to summarize it'. I reexamined their sources, and cast about for more, and came up with a solution that noted (a)dissent in both sides (b) rejection in both sides, with the added point that the Zionists were willing to continue to discuss partition. Since all sources states the Zionists were divided before passing the resolution, and all sources that deal in depth state that the Arab were divided, before passing their resolution, the text as it stood showcased the former, while eliding the latter, hence it misrepresented the complexities of the moment. As to what you call 'crap' (namely, one must assume, the data concerning the huge economic loss the plan implied for Arabs), you suggest it be taken out of the lead. Well, I took it out of the lead, and was reverted by Monochrome Monitor, Epson Salts and, up till now, you appear to have approved of the revert.Nishidani (talk) 21:42, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

I've read the discussion between Zero and Ykantor when it happened and also again now. I have actually read most of the scholarship they refer to as well. I saw your list of sources (Jad Isaac?!) and Epson's. Most of the historians who specialize in the conflict seem to summarize it along the lines of the Jews accepted or did not reject (after much deliberation and perhaps not being completely honest), the Arabs rejected. There are a few dissenting scholars and authors, who should get due WEIGHT (i.e not in the lead).

What I meant by "crap" is the specifics that do not belong in a summary. That the Arabs objected because (among other things) they would lose a lot of productive land is fine, but all that stuff that is pulled almost verbatim from a document reproduced in current source #4 seems to be less of a summary and more of UNDUE. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:10, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

I see that the debate over an unrelated page has spilled over to here. My comments. Firstly, the current lead says The Jewish leadership accepted partition with mixed feelings as an opportunity for sovereignty. Half a line isn't enough to deal with the complexities of the issue. As Nishidani has demonstrated, this is not the view of all the scholarship on the issue. The Arab position is given a full paragraph to deal with all the complexities, while the Jewish position is dealt with in one line. However, I feel that Nishidani's rendering of the Zionist position seems to go too far in the other direction. The specific plan was rejected, but some sources do say "accepted" or "not rejected outright" the principle of partition. I suggest cutting down the space given to the Arab position by half and dealing with the Zionist position in at least two or three sentences. I agree with Zero that there needs to be some sort of source filter. There's too much crap written on the topic by people. Finally, a comment on Wikipedia policy. Of course, a reversion indicates dissent: WP:ONUS states that the responsibility for finding consensus rests with the person inserting the content, which is Nishidani. However, one can't really get consensus unless people are willing to discuss what exactly is wrong with the text on the talkpage. Discussing through edit summaries isn't useful. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 23:49, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

People are discussing the text, on the talk page, after I initiated this discussion, and once Nishidani stopped trying to edit war his POV changes back into the article without consensus. I agree that the the Arab position is given far too much discussion in the lead, and also that the Jewish position is not described accurately enough. The Arab portion needs to be reduced, and I suggest removing all the part about "98%", which is not only unsourced , but does not appear elsewhere in the article, and in any case seems to be a misrepresentation of what the Woodhead commission wrote when it explained why it was reducing the proposed Jewish state's area by taking away part of the Galilee. The Jewish position needs to be stated as "The Jewish leadership accepted the principle of partition proposed by the Peel commission, while rejecting the specific borders suggested by it, and offering to negotiate further on final borders."

Attempting to equate the positions of Jews and Arabs, along the lines of "both sides had supporters and opponents of the plan" as Nishidani seems to want to do is simply not going to fly. Epson Salts (talk) 02:16, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Ok, here's what I did. Since we all seem to agree that the Arab position is given too much space, and the 98% stuff should be gotten rid of, I mostly kept Nishidani's version of the paragraph. For the Zionist position, I added a few sentences to elaborate on the position, based on Galnoor and Podeh. I ditched the Norman Finkelstein source since nobody gives a damn about what Dershowitz thinks. Feel free to revert/edit/discuss etc. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 02:43, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I made a couple of corrections. 1. A source saying in passing that there was "some indication" that the Nashashibis and Abdullah "might" agree to partition but they eventually didn't is not lead material. 2. Morris is very specific about who he attributed the "stepping stone" thing to - Ben Gurion and Weizmann. Podeh added Sharet. How it became a general things about "those in favour of seizing the possibilities opened up by the proposal" is, well, I wanted to say "beyond me" but not really. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 03:25, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Also, could you please point me to the part in Podeh that supports "a proposal that Britain adhere to its promise of a sovereign democratic state with constitutional guarantees for the rights of the Jewish minority"? I can't find it. I'm also considering adding a quote from Morris (p.138) about Arab leaders saying that they will fight and there will be no compromise, to balance the Morris quote about the stepping stones. Any objections? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 03:33, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree with the removal of the Abdullah etc. part. It's probably too detailed for the lead. As to the "sovereign democratic...", it's on page 30. I don't know what quote you wish to include from Morris, but I don't know what you want it for. It is already made clear that the Arabs rejected partition and laid claim to the whole of Palestine, so "no compromise" is redundant. The other Morris quote is included because some Zionist leaders, namely Ben-Gurion and Weizmann, viewed it as a stepping stone to the whole of Palestine. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 04:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread it somewhat. It appears that removal of the earlier part has changed the meaning of the remaining part. The "sovereign democratic..." etc. seems to have come from the Nashashibi party not the AHC. According to this other source, the AHC statement called for a different phrasing, which may be significant or not I don't know: The AHC, by contrast, called for independence of a united state of Palestine "with protection of all legitimate Jewish and minority rights and safeguarding of reasonable British interests". I have changed the phrasing and added the other source. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 04:41, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

The new JSTOR source (#6) now at the end of the paragraph says the Arabs thought that "the very presence of Jews enjoying rights was a betrayal of the British word", not only the lack of an independent Palestine. We also don't explain why the Arabs rejected the plan (or partition in general) while strongly implying the Jews did so for exclusively sinister reasons. That's not NPOV. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 05:10, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I plan to expand the "Arab reaction" section (using Podeh) to explain in some more detail (giving the position of Nashashibi and others) why the Arabs rejected partition. We can perhaps then summarize the matter in the lead. I do not understand the later comment. The lead says that Arab rejected partition outright and laid claim to the whole of Palestine. The Zionists were divided: all of them rejected the specific plan, but some rejected partition outright, while others (Ben-Gurion and Weizmann) accepted (or not rejected outright) the principle of partition, while viewing it as a stepping stone for the whole of Palestine. What is POV here? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:23, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I have expanded the Arab reaction section based on Podeh and Bose. If people want, we can summarize the reasons for opposition to partition in the lead. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:50, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry there was an edit conflict and hoped I haven't missed anything. One problem is that there is now reduplication in the last line of recommendations and the Arab reaction re transfer figures. I guess the way to fix that would be to make the recommendation point general, and leave the precise statistical elements in the reactions section- There'ìs quite a lot of work to be done throughout this article. It ignores all sorts of things like tax transfers from both Palestinian revenue and the British treasury to the displaced Palestinians etc. Still, these things are best done slowly. Nishidani (talk) 14:02, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Zionists did not accept the specific proposal of the commission, that is a Jewish microstate, but they were willing to negotiate further. The Arabs rejected any solution offered under the commission's mandate that would involve Jews being granted any national rights. That's the difference.--Monochrome_Monitor 01:01, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

@Monochrome Monitor: Let's assume your characterization is right. But that's not what the lead says, does it? Does it say anywhere that the Zionists didn't accept the specific proposal of the commission but were willing to negotiate further? Instead it says: "accepted" without any qualification, which is misleading at the very least. Why not discuss this on the talkpage and move to a compromise/consensus position? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 01:06, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

You're right, it's not, which is stupid. Not even Jewish Virtual Library pretends the Zionists "accepted" it, and they are unabashed Zionists.[1]--Monochrome_Monitor 01:42, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

A question for Zero

The lead has:

The British cabinet endorsed the Partition plan in principle, but requested more information

This is uncannily like how many sources describe the Zionist position, and the implication is that the Zionist and British Government positions were identical.

Walter Laqueur writes:

'Its main recommendations were not accepted by the British Government. . .(p.517)'; 'British official reactions were at first favourable: the WEhite Paper accompanying the report stated that the government adopted its recommendations since partition on the general lines suggested represented the most hopeful solution of the deadlock.' (p.518)Walter Laqueur,A History of Zionism, Tauris Parke ed. 2003 p.639

I presume this contradiction is ironed out by the effect of Viscount Samuel's persuasive dismissal in the House of Lords of the idea of transfer ('second thoughts produced grave doubts'). The House of Commons then persuaded the government not to endorse the plan. But the reader has to connect the dots, since Laqueur is not clear. He does add of course that 'The partition scheme was contemptuously rejected by the Arabs, and sharply criticized by most Zionists'(presumably the adverb describes the stupidity of Arabs who refused to give up the whole of the Galilee, where relatively few Jews existed, in return for having 225,000 refugees on their hands) Could you throw some light on this, to clarify whether the lead quote above is an adequate statement for the situation. Nishidani (talk) 22:07, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Galnoor says: "The Commission’s proposal was endorsed by the British Cabinet on 7th July 1937. However, the reception of the idea in the House of Commons was far from enthsiastic and the debate on the 21st of July 1937 was inconclusive. By the end of 1937 the British government already had second thoughts about the whole scheme proposed by the Commission. The Colonial Office continued to support it, but the opposition of the Foreign Office became more effective because the changing international situation in Europe increased the strategic importance of Palestine (E.I.) for Britain. In January 1938 the government, headed by Chamberlain, announced the appointment of another ‘Palestine Partition Commission’ (The Woodhead Commission)." Before the Woodhead Commission sat, the British government decided that any plan involving forced transfer would not be accepted; that was pubic information. In his journal article, Galnoor writes that Woodhead was secretly advised to decide against partition, citing a letter in the archives. However, in his book a few years later Galnoor appears to have had second thoughts about the interpretation of the letter and wrote instead that Woodhead was advised that rejection of partition was one of the options open to him (which wasn't entirely clear from the terms of reference). Curious about this, I asked the British archives for a copy of the letter but they wanted an extraordinary amount of money for it and I was too stingy. Zero^talk 03:57, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

You made an unfortunate typo above. That's all I'm going to say. Also, I found this on the internet archive.[2]--Monochrome_Monitor 20:36, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Modern Sources Under Reactions Sections

I propose that the modern commentary in the reactions sections from Henry Laurens be removed. This 5 line commentary from a relatively unknown historian does not represent reactions better than any primary source during the period would. Furthermore credentials for dedicating such a large commentary to this historian are dubious, in the sense that there are many other better known historians ie Sir Martin Gilbert that would be more appropriate if modern commentary is needed. Otherwise, there is the possibility that opposing viewpoints will selectively pick quotes from modern historians sympathetic to their narratives.

The only modern commentary given in the Jewish Reaction is from a UofA professor without a wikipedia page who is also relatively unknown and I propose should be removed as well. If the commentary from Henry Laurens is to be kept, then in accordance with neutrality and parity I propose that modern commentary be inserted into the Jewish Reaction section that is as sympathetic to the concerns faced by the Jews at the time, as is Henry Lauren's to the concerns of the Arabs. Eframgoldberg (talk) 15:52, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what you mean by "modern commentary". It is is generally the practice to cite secondary sources rather than the primary sources. I agree that the "Jewish Reaction" section should cite more secondary sources instead of primary sources. But, for instance, the Jewish Reaction section does cite Benny Morris ("New Historian"), Shabtai Teveth (opposed to the "New Historians") and William Roger Louis. The criteria used is not "sympathy" with this or that group in Palestine, but whether the concerns of all groups are rendered accurately and all points of view are . For instance, Laurens is only one of the sources used in the Arab Reactions section. The last sentence, about the Palestinian class of notables scattered and replaced by the Emir of Jordan is also corroborated a couple of paragraphs below, citing Elie Podeh. The latter stood to gain much from partition; reaching an accord with the Nashashibis could have consolidated his rule and left Husseini powerless. Morris is used for the Arab Reactions section as well. What, precisely, in the part from Laurens which is quoted, do you find wrong or undue? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 17:24, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Aftermath Section

The final lines of the article dealing with the Aftermath cite the Zionist reactions from the Biltmore conference of 1942 and the Arab reactions from the Bloudan conference in 1937.

I suggest that they are either both removed, or the Zionist aftermath is replaced by a more temporally suitable reaction. The Biltmore conference was in response to the White Paper of 1939 and whose main point was in lifting the restriction of immigration into the Mandate by Jews fleeing persecution. In that sense, it is not relevant to the Peel Commission of 1937 as the White Paper was not drafted for another 2 years. Leaving only the Arab reaction would seem 1 sided, so I will remove both until this can be resolved. Eframgoldberg (talk) 19:58, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

It is poorly written and sourced. The phrase "all of what was left of the Mandate of Palestine" smacks of the "Jordan is Palestine" myth and should be returned to "all of Palestine" as the great majority of sources would have it (which I will do as an intermediate edit). MidEastWeb is not a reliable source. The Encyclopedia article was written by Michael Fischbach, who is quite reliable, but the Bloudan conference is already adequately mentioned above in the "Arab reaction" section. It is true that the Biltmore conference was more a reaction to the White Paper than to the Peel plan. Zero^talk 00:10, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Not sure what the Jordan is Palestine myth is, I was making a technical point that the Mandate for Palestine included the area known as TransJordan and Palestine which became separate entities at least concerning the Balfour Declaration in 1921 via the League of Nations memorandoum.

Once again I suggest the last two sentences should just be removed altogether as the Biltmore conference was an aftermath to the White Paper and as you mentioned the Bloudan conference was already covered. Eframgoldberg (talk) 16:55, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I am going to remove the sentence on the Biltmore Conference of 1942 as it is not relevant to the direct aftermath of the Peel Commision. The world circumstances between 1937 and 1942 changed dramatically due to WWII and the Biltmore Conference is best described as a response to the White Paper. These concerns were previously brought up and as how no effort has been made to replace it with a more appropriate response, I will delete it. Eframgoldberg (talk) 18:14, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Peel Commission. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131103061306/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/4941922311B4E3C585256D17004BD2E2 to http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/4941922311B4E3C585256D17004BD2E2
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101231091409/http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/08e38a718201458b052565700072b358?OpenDocument to http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/08e38a718201458b052565700072b358?OpenDocument

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 02:42, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Peel Commission. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120609143404/http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/561c6ee353d740fb8525607d00581829/08e38a718201458b052565700072b358 to http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/561c6ee353d740fb8525607d00581829/08e38a718201458b052565700072b358
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120805064657/http://www.scribd.com/doc/1136825/Encyclopedia-Of-The-Palestinians- to https://www.scribd.com/doc/1136825/Encyclopedia-Of-The-Palestinians-
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120805064657/http://www.scribd.com/doc/1136825/Encyclopedia-Of-The-Palestinians- to https://www.scribd.com/doc/1136825/Encyclopedia-Of-The-Palestinians-

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 02:11, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Jewish rejection revisited: they rejected Peel, they accepted partition, they rejected partition.

The historical documents are clear that the Jews did reject the proposal. The Twentieth Zionist Congress put it thusly:

• 6. The Congress declares that the scheme of partition put forward by the Royal Commission is unacceptable.

This was preceded by several paragraphs which stated, in particular, the proposal to limit Jewish immigration and affirms (paragraph 3) the "national aspirations of the Jewish people..."

The concluding paragraphs says that the Zionists might consider another proposal that establishes a "Jewish State:"

• 7. The Congress empowers the Executive to enter into negotiations with a view to ascertaining the precise terms of His Majesty's Government for the proposed establishment of a Jewish State.

• 8. In such negotiations the Executive shall not commit either itself or the Zionist Organization, but in the event of the emergence of a definite scheme for the establishment of a Jewish State, such scheme shall be brought before a newly elected Congress for decision.

However, even this was quickly rejected by the subsequent meeting of the Political Committee, which added:

• The Council reaffirms the declarations of its previous sessions expressing readiness to reach a peaceful settlement with the Arabs of Palestine based on the free development of both the Jewish and Arab peoples and the mutual recognition of their respective rights. It directs the Executive to persevere in its efforts to this end, and, with this object in view, to request His Majesty's Government to convene a conference of the Jews and of the Arabs of Palestine with a view to exploring the possibilities of making a peaceful settlement between Jews and Arabs in and for an undivided Palestine on the basis of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate.

So the Zionist conference rejected the Peel commission and asked for, first, a Jewish State but contradictorily, a unified state. In neither case did it agree to accept either resolution.

To claim that the Jews accepted the principle of partition is clearly false. To claim that they did not reject Peel is fantasy. PALESTINE: A STUDY OF JEWISH, ARAB, AND BRITISH POLICIES Published for the Esco Foundation for Palestine, Inc. https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.226263/2015.226263.Palestine-Vol_djvu.txt Mcdruid (talk) 07:53, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

The Zionist position here requires some interpretation. From the beginning, the Zionist side had interpreted the Balfour declaration as a positive declaration of the right of theJewish people to self determination over the entire territory of Palestine. As well from early on ethnic transfer was not only contemplated, but assumed to be almost a positive right of the Jewish people itself. The logic was, it was hard to imagine enough Jewish immigrants arriving fast enough to form the majority of the population over the entire territory. But, of course, they had been *guaranteed* national self determination in their view over this territory. So they began to implicitly assume large scale Arab population transfer. For an almost bizarre period of time, Ben Gorion held to the viewpoint that an eventual arrangement could be made with the Arabs where large numbers would peacefully agree to emigrate *entirely out of the Palestine mandate*, in exchange for cash or economic benefits. When he lost the delusion it could be done voluntarily, he almost immediately began contemplating involuntary transfer instead. The concept of the Jewish rights he perceived in Balfour was comparitively inviolable and he did not give much shrift any compromise if them.

This was a very maximalist and precise assumption that the British probably would've been aghast to know that had somehow left the door open to with their vague wording. Especially the assumptions regarding ethnic transfer, and doubly especially transfer *out of the Mandate*. The latter it was probably difficult for them to even consider, as it would violate their responsibility as guarantor of the Mandate to the Palestinian Arabs, as well as the national self determination of the surrounding mandates, which they were also tasked with safeguarding, and unlike the Palestine Mandate contained no abridgement to self determination that would even legally allow for the surrounding mandates to simply have large numbers of people from other Mandates just dumped off on them. The British assumed the most minimal interpretation, basically that at some later point they would work out the details of the precise borders *within* Palestine and precise sovereignty arrangements, in consultation with the Arab population.

The Zionist assumptions made little accommodations for anything besides the rights they assumed to have been granted to the Jewish people by Balfour. Like I am sure in their mind, Palestine has already been made to accept immigrants, so certainly it was little different to contemplate sending Arabs to other Arab majority territories. The British viewpoint was in the other hand entirely from an above ground view, balancing the various interests of all the parties involved carefully. So something like migration was not a tiny matter. Palestine could only legally be required to accept immigrants, because the people of that territory had specifically and uniquely out of all mandates, and all states formed since that time, abridged the right of the local population to their own self determination. The other mandates right to self determination had not been abridged, any ethnic transfer to them could only practically be done within the Mandate itself, or (impracticaly) through voluntary agreement and arrangement with the representatives of other mandates. Which, it's almost impossible to see ever having been agreed to if the transfer was involuntary in nature.

So here's the crutch, the Zionists had an interpretation of their own right to self determination, that took as an entitlement almost the abridgement of not only the self determination of the Palestinian Arabs, but also took essentially no accounting of the right to self determination of surrounding Mandates. Zionists have often had a tendency to apply the same standards of self determination that they used for themselves also to other entire peoples. So, like the Arabs collectively had a right to self determination, *somewhere*. Their immigration to Palestine was hardly a burden because after all the Arabs could just go self determine elsewhere with other Arabs, so it was fine. While for *literally every other nation on Earth* self determination was implicitly assumed to be, to that set of people who lived within whatever borders. The self determination of specific groups of Arabs within specific distinct sets of borders was hardly considered. Even though in terms of international law, for every nation aside from the Jews, this was literally all that mattered and should have been given consideration equivalent to the Jews own right to self-determination. Modern Israel still seemingly has huge problems of fallaciously applying their own international, people based standard of self determination, which I guess seems all good and natural to them, to other entire peoples, which is legally never appropriate for any group besides the Jewish people. So of course, look at all these Arab states, they have so many states among themselves but choose to pick on poor poor small small Israel. When there does not exist any right of the Arab people to self determination, only an Iraqi right, Lebanese right, Tunisian right, etc..., and it's entirely meaningless legally to pit collective Jewish self determination against collective Arab self determination. These territories may be artificial, but that is so where self determination is supposed to exist for all these peoples.

I guess it is somewhat strange that a situation has been created, where the Jewish people have a right to self determination that is somehow entirely unlike any other right to self determination in the world. And it created the absurd situation, in which Palestinian self determination (considered by territorial standards applicable to all other self determinations of all other nations) contradict on some fundamental level Jewish self determination. But from the Zionist view this was fine, they were Arabs and Arabs had plenty of land elsewhere. But there is no such thing as Arab self determination legally. There are only many sets of territorial self-determination in majority Arab states. When talking to Israelis, they are expected to rely on a people based self determination that doesn't exist for them, and when talking to other Arabs and nations, they are expected to rely on a territorial self determination that also doesn't exist for them, as the territorial self determination they would've otherwise received, and the self determination of that territory instead assigned to the Jewish peoples people based self determination. They have through some oversight been entirely written out of all standards of self determination, and universally alienated.

Anyway, when you read here then requesting a Jewish state, and also a unified state, that is not contradictory. Those are the rights which they believed the Jewish people to have received under "the basis of the Balfour Declaration". They are objecting to the partition, as in their view assigning *any* territory to the Arab population violated the Jewish peoples right to self determination they had been given under Balfour.

Particularly this line:

to request His Majesty's Government to convene a conference of the Jews and of the Arabs of Palestine with a view to exploring the possibilities of making a peaceful settlement between Jews and Arabs in and for an undivided Palestine on the basis of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate.

What they mean here is a "peaceful settlement" in which would be arranged and organized the Arab populations emigration to other Arab lands, also necessary and intrinsic in their view to Balfour guarantees with regards to Jewish self determination. They were annoyed at what they perceived as the Jewish peoples integral rights of self determination, being divided up and some assigned to the Arab peoples already vast territory of self determination instead. From the Palestinian point of view of course, the area of self determination for them had just been cut by a whole third, which to them was catastrophic. If they had understood that the Jewish delegation apparently assumed them to have no territorial rights of self determination. At all, I assume there wouldn't immediately been a riot. But nobody really understood the points the Zionist delegation was making and their implicit assumptions.

The Zionist delegation *always* considered their interpretation of Balfour to be the Jewish peopled legitimate and de jure rights of self determination. They agree to Peele conditionally based on the assumption that later on they can expand and fulfill for themselves these de jure rights of the Jewish people Britain, which Britain was callously disregarding and trying to renige on in their view. Britain considers itself a mediator who has full right to decide all these final details themselves. The Zionists in the other hand view the Balfour rights as De Jure and inherent, so that even though Britain was balking at their fulfillment, they could rightfully be claimed later.

The nakba and the subsequent wars of territorial expansion Israel would engage in can be understood from this perspective, necessary steps in the final fulfillment of the Jewish peoples promised and fundamental rights to self determination, that all other parties had selfishly tried to back away from. The Nakba was the necessary ethnic transfer, and in the 1967 war they finally reunited all of the Palestine granted to them under Balfour. If you read Israeli government justifications of modern settlement policy, these are still the fundamental interpretations. Jordan us viewed as having *abridged* for a period of time the Jewish peoples right to settle and control that part of Palestine, with the 1967 war having restored this fundamental national right of theirs. The nakba, 1948, and 1967 wars are, in this view, *inherently defensive on the face of it*, as these nations were at that period of time aggressing in Jewish national rights guaranteed in Balfour. All the other surrounding countrie, who expressed their nation's own self determination in purely territorial terms, considered Israel comp<=letely inexplicable and an an aggressive expansionist power. The Palestinians were left with nothing, and all sides regretting bitterly any accommodation they had to make for them, which in their view rightfully always belonged to some other party. -2601:140:8900:2070:41BF:50EA:B915:342C (talk) 18:21, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what this whole rant is supposed to be about. The Jewish community institutions of the British Mandate accepted the principle of partition when it counted, in 1947 (while the Arabs vehemently rejected it at that time). Furthermore, the word "Palestinians" as you use it is anachronistic to the year 1937 -- the word didn't begin to be commonly used that way in English until the 1950s... And the World Zionist Congress meeting in Zurich in August 1937 did accept the principle of partition. Anyway, at the September 1937 meeting of the League of Nations Council, the British started backing away from the principle of partition, so that the whole thing would appear to have been a rather academic exercise anyway... AnonMoos (talk) 22:54, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Request for copy edit (quotation marks)

According to Benny Morris, Ben-Gurion and Weizmann saw it 'as a stepping stone to some further expansion and the eventual takeover of the whole of Palestine.’ should be changed to According to Benny Morris, Ben-Gurion and Weizmann saw it "as a stepping stone to some further expansion and the eventual takeover of the whole of Palestine." The use of quotation marks here is inconsistent with both the rest of the article as well as the Wikipedia Manual of Style; both are single quotation marks, and the second is curly, not straight. Both should be double, straight quotation marks ("). See: MOS:QUOTEMARKS, especially MOS:STRAIGHT and MOS:DOUBLE. Thanks! HeyArtemis (talk) 09:32, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

 Done casualdejekyll 13:29, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

References

Benny Morris analysis is irrelevant as it's speculation

The line about Benny Morris claiming Ben Gurion had intentions to take over all the land is placed in a very central location in the article, and people might mistake this as absolute truth even though it was never stated by him. 2001:4DF7:2:BCE3:A58E:D4E2:7EDA:5B1F (talk) 16:26, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your speculation. See 1937 Ben-Gurion letter. Nishidani (talk) 17:30, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

This letter is seriously contested, and should not really be used as evidence. Can you find another instance of Ben-Gurions support of transfer? 75.164.185.19 (talk) 22:17, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 November 2023

Citation 35's link is dead

Mattar, Phillip (2005), Encyclopedia of the Palestinians, Infobase Publishing, p. 104, ISBN 0-8160-5764-8, archived from the original on 5 August 2012

You can update it to the following link where the book is hosted at this time: https://yplus.ps/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Mattar-Philip-ed.-Encyclopedia-of-the-Palestinians.pdf Review of the material shows that the content matches the wikipedia page. Connornorvell (talk) 16:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not dead. M.Bitton (talk) 18:54, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Secret Testimony

"The commissioners made their recommendation after listening to several weeks of testimony, delivered in both public and secret sessions. The transcripts of the public testimony were published soon afterward, but the secret testimony transcripts were only released by the United Kingdom’s National Archives in March 2017."[3]

This information should be added to the article. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 04:00, 24 June 2024 (UTC)