During the end of May and the first half of June 1938, the Jewish Agency Executive in Jerusalem discussed the question of the transfer of Arabs from Palestine. At the meeting of 29 May, Shertok told the members that the Woodhead Commission was asking for a feasibility study on the transfer of Arabs from the proposed Jewish State to Syria.
The Population Transfer Committee had already prepared a memorandum on Arab resettlement in Syria. However, Ussishkin was against supplying such information to the Woodhead Commission as Syria was not under British jurisdiction.(256) No fewer than three members disagreed with Ussishkin and insisted that this information be supplied to the Commission.
Kaplan said, �It is our duty to prove that there is room for absorption in the neighbouring Arab countries.� He added that had the Commission not requested information, it would have been the Jewish Agency's duty to volunteer such material.(257)
Ruppin agreed on the need to stress the existence of �the many empty areas in the neighbouring Arab countries�, but he, like Ussishkin, was doubtful of the possibility of transfer to any area not under British Mandate. He therefore recommended that the Jewish Agency �stress in particular the possibility of absorption of Arabs in Transjordan.�(258)
Ben-Gurion also believed that the Jewish Agency should supply the Commission with the information on Syria, although �it is obvious that we will not be able to transfer Arabs to Syria without the agreement of France and the Syrian Government.�(259) [At the time, Syria was under a French Mandate.]
What we see from all these objections to Ussishkin's suggestion of withholding information from the Woodhead Commission, is that the members of the Jewish Agency Executive were keen to keep all doors open at a time when the British Government was having serious doubts about the whole question of population transfer.
At the meeting of 9 June, Ben-Gurion read out a letter from the Zionist leader, Dr. Fischel Rotenstreich, who was absent due to illness. In Rotenstreich's opinion, the Jewish Agency, if consulted on a solution to the Arab problem must �stand by the suggestion of the Peel Commission who sees transfer as the only solution to this question.�(260)
The main discussion by the Jewish Agency Executive on the transfer of Arabs took place on the afternoon of 12 June 1938. Members of the Political Committee of the Jewish Agency participated in this meeting. During the course of the meeting, many aspects of the transfer proposal were discussed.
A number of speakers debated the compulsory or voluntary nature of the transfer and its ethical aspects. Ben-Gurion saw in the Peel Commission's proposals �two positive matters - the idea of a State and the compulsory transfer.� He felt that carrying out this compulsory transfer would be the greatest achievement in the history of Jewish settlement in Palestine and would give the Jewish State an enormous area. �I favour compulsory transfer�, said Ben-Gurion, �I see nothing unethical in it.�(261)
Earlier we spoke about an exchange between Katznelson and Ya'ari at a Zionist General Council meeting in 1942. It is interesting to note how this exchange was written up in an �edited� version of Katznelson's writings published in 1947, three years after his death! �What is renounce?� asked Katznelson, �Renounce is when a man demands something and then goes back on it... Did Ben-Gurion ever speak of compulsory transfer and did he 'renounce' it? No, we never raised the standard of compulsory transfer and therefore we did not need to 'renounce' it.�(262) The Editor was obviously unaware of (or closed his eyes to!) what Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders had said in the past.
Another speaker at this Jewish Agency Executive meeting was Shmuel Zuchovitsky, a member of the Inner Zionist Council and a leading figure in the agricultural sector. He was convinced that transfer was impossible without compulsion and saw nothing unethical in it, adding, �We want to help Jews to come to the Jewish country and want to help Arabs to move over to an Arab country.�(263)
Berl Katznelson said that obviously even those Zionist groups who accepted partition without transfer would not oppose agreements with individual Arabs to leave Palestine. �But what is meant by compulsory transfer?� he asked, �Is it transfer against the wishes of the Arab State? Against such wishes no force in the world could implement such a transfer.� He explained that compulsory transfer meant that as soon as an agreement on transfer had been made, individual Arabs who objected to transfer could be compelled to transfer against their will. �If you have to make a transfer agreement with each Arab village and every individual Arab, you will never finish with the problem. We are continually carrying out transfers of individual Arabs,� he said, �But the question will be the transfer of a larger number of Arabs with the agreement of the Arab State.�(264)
Ussishkin spoke on the ethical aspects of transfer. He said that if after all the promises of the Balfour Declaration, it was possible �to steal from the Jewish people� nine-tenths of their historic territories and give them just a small strip of land and claim this to be ethical, then it was �most ethical� to transfer Arabs out of Palestine and resettle them in better conditions.(265)
Yehoshua Suparsky, a member of the Inner Zionist Council, pointed out that part of the Zionist community wanted the Jewish Agency to insist in the implementation of the Peel Commission's compulsory transfer recommendation and not accept the latest pronouncement by the British Government. He felt, however that it was difficult to insist on compulsory transfer in the light of the situation appertaining at the time, although he did accept that �we need to stand by the principle of compulsory transfer� without however insisting on its immediate implementation. Suparsky added that Jewish Agency memoranda should state that the original views of the Peel Commission were correct and that the British Government in its later pronouncement was in error.(266)
Yitzchak Ben-Zvi suggested giving the Arabs the option of taking out citizenship within two to three years or leaving the country. He added that there were international precedents for this.(267) Ben-Zvi's suggestion is in fact a form of compulsory transfer.
An almost identical idea had been made just four days earlier at a meeting of the Political Committee of Mapai, when the �National Guidelines of the Jewish State� as formulated by Ben-Gurion, were presented. Under the section headed �The Jewish State and the Minorities� is found paragraph 19 of these guidelines which states: �With the establishment of the state, the option will be given to all Palestinian citizens who reside in the area of the state to decide within three years whether or not they accept citizenship of the Jewish state. In the event of the second option [i.e. them not accepting it], they will be required after this period to leave the country.�(268)
In contrast to the above speakers at this Jewish Agency Executive meeting, there were a few members who wanted a non-compulsory transfer. The Labour leader, Eliezer Kaplan, very much wanted the transfer to be thoroughly considered and well-organised, �but I associate with those members who think that it is possible under certain conditions to organise a non- compulsory transfer.�(269) Arthur Ruppin, after discussing the number of Arabs that it was �most desirable� to transfer to the Arab State said that �the transfer needs to be voluntary.�(270)
Although many members of the Executive were in favour of a compulsory transfer, they realised that it would have to be implemented by the British and not by the Jews. Ben-Gurion said that not only could the Zionist establishment not carry out a compulsory transfer, they should not even suggest it. If such a suggestion from the Zionists could have achieved compulsory transfer, �I would suggest it�, said Ben-Gurion. However, since this was not the case, such a suggestion from the Zionists would be very dangerous for the Jews both within Palestine and in the Diaspora.(271)
Ussishkin, similarly said that the Jews could not themselves carry out this transfer, as, if they were to attempt it, �all the world would rise up and rebel against us.� The first to oppose it would be the Jewish community who would fear repercussions on Jews in other countries. Ussishkin considered, �Only the British Government is able to do it, if they want.� He explained that two things were required, �the might of England and Jewish money�, and if the former were available, the latter would be found.(272)
Ben-Zvi felt that whereas immigration to the Jewish State needs to be within the prerogative of the provisional Jewish Government, the transfer of the Arabs from the Jewish State could not be so. It would require the British Government's taking responsibility and giving guarantees and would need the agreement of the Arab State.(273)
[Incidentally, just over a year later, Ben-Zvi was to inform the Jewish Agency Executive that he felt that the British had made an error when they forbade discussion on the Peel Report's recommendation regarding population transfer.(274) Presumably, he was referring to the British Government's Despatch of December 1937.]
Zuchovitsky was concerned with the public relations aspect of the transfer and suggested that the Zionist Establishment refer to it not as �the transfer which we are carrying out� but as �the transfer which the Mandatory Government must implement.� He added, that any memorandum submitted must clearly stress this transfer as one of the conditions essential for the Jewish State to be realised, hence incumbent upon the British Government to implement.(275)
Katznelson blamed the British change of attitude towards the transfer proposal on various Zionist groups who argued against it within their institutions. As we see later in this work, the British Government in an Official Despatch stated, �On behalf of the Jews it was also made clear to us that Jewish opinion would be opposed to the exercise of any degree of compulsion.� Katznelson added that transfer was a matter of principle.(276)
Although the British Government had changed its views on the transfer of the Arabs, both Eliahu Berlin(277) and Ben-Gurion held that this question could not just be dismissed. Ben-Gurion suggested that they compromise by altering the wording �compulsory transfer� to some other phrase - connected either with citizenship or agricultural zoning - having the same force.(278)
Ussishkin, who personally opposed the partition of Palestine, said that it would be impossible to establish a Jewish State with an Arab population of forty-five per cent. The British Government should be told that the Zionists were not themselves able to implement the transfer, and that therefore the Government had two options. They would either have to admit that it was impossible to remove the Arabs, in which case partition would be impossible and hence the Mandate would have to be continued or they would have �to implement the transfer by force over a period of years.�(279) Ussishkin asked his colleagues what they would say if they were offered a State without Galilee, or without part of Jerusalem, or without complete sovereignty. Obviously, he said, that they would not accept it. Similarly they should say that they �would not accept the proposed state without freeing it of part of its rural Arabs and expropriation of their land.�(280)
Various members of the Executive estimated the number of Arabs that it would be possible to transfer and the probable time span.
Arthur Ruppin said, �It is very much to be desired that we should be able to transfer 100,000 Arabs to the Arab State.�(281) This could not be accomplished immediately. It would take between ten and fifteen years. Ruppin added that he did not believe in the transfer of individual Arabs but �I believe in the transfer of complete villages.�(282) Zuchovitsky also felt that even �if it is impossible to transfer all the Arab inhabitants, it should be possible to transfer a portion of them - 100,000 people.�(283) However, Shertok considered that Ussishkin's programme of transferring forty thousand Arab agricultural families (actually Ussishkin quoted a figure of sixty thousand(284) ) to Transjordan within a short period was Utopian.(285)
David Senator, although a member of the Brit Shalom, a group whose aim was a bi-national state said, �We should strive for maximum transfer.� He added, �If we can ease the general problem by means of transfer, it would be very desirable and it is necessary as far as possible, to persuade and prove to the Commission that this is important.�(286)
Ben-Zvi considered that in order to obtain a Jewish majority, (he obviously meant a decisive Jewish majority), it would be desirable to transfer a large number of Arabs within two to three years. He realised, however, that in practice this would not be possible and a much longer time would be required.(287) Shertok also felt that the time required to transfer sixty thousand Arab families would be protracted and could take fifteen to twenty years.(288)
Priority among transferees and destination of transfer was mentioned by a few speakers. Katznelson considered that for reasons of security, priority should be given to Arabs living on the border.(289) Ussishkin wanted the destination of transfer to be Transjordan and not the areas of the proposed Arab State west of the Jordan. �There is sufficient land in Transjordan�, he said.(290) Ben-Gurion felt that it was best to transfer the Arabs to the el-Jezireh area in Northern Syria.(291)
Several speakers made suggestions on financing the transfer. Senator said that the Jewish Agency should suggest the setting up of a development department in the Arab State on the lines of that suggested for Palestine. The Jewish Agency would pay the Arabs the price of the land for resettling the Arabs and also compensation, as had been customary. Senator also recommended giving the Arab State not additional compensation, but a loan to help in the resettlement of the transferred Arabs.(292)
Ruppin suggested making an agreement with the British Government and the Arab State on the establishment of a development company which would operate in both Palestine and Transjordan. In Transjordan, all public lands would be at its disposal and the British would make a large loan to this company for the resettlement of Arabs in the Arab State.
Arab landowners in Palestine would be paid a little more than the market value for their land in the hope that this might �influence them to sell their land.� With the money received, the Arab landowners would be able to settle in the Arab State and have a higher standard of living since the prices offered for land in the proposed Jewish State were four to five times higher than prices obtaining in Transjordan. In order to encourage the Arab tenant farmers to leave Palestine, Ruppin suggested that the Jewish Agency should �participate a bit in their transfer expenses,� and should also arrange a loan from the development company to aid in their resettlement.(293)
All who spoke at this Jewish Agency Executive meeting were in favour of transferring the Arabs from Palestine and many were in favour of compulsory transfer. Even those who opposed the partition of Palestine, such as Menachem Ussishkin, were in favour of the transfer and both Arthur Ruppin and David Senator, who were members of �Brit Shalom� - the organisation in favour of a bi-national (Jewish-Arab) State - supported the transfer of Arabs from Palestine!
Material Submitted to Woodhead Commission
At the end of May 1938, Selig Eugen Soskin produced a draft memorandum for the Woodhead Commission on practical proposals for the execution of the �Exchange of Land and Population� recommendations of the Peel Commission.
[Soskin, an agronomist, and at one time Director of the Settlement Department in the Central Office of the Jewish National Fund, was one of the founders of the town of Nahariyah. He subsequently became spokesman on matters of agricultural settlement to the Revisionist movement. After the split in the movement, he joined the Jewish State Party.]
He sent his draft memorandum to Moshe Shertok requesting that he study it, and then correct or alter it as he thought necessary.(294) Shertok duly did this, inserting in his own handwriting various changes and amendments. [As this would imply Shertok's concurrence with the amended version, all quotes, direct and indirect, will be on the basis of the version as amended by Shertok.]
Soskin began his memorandum by pointing out that �an important part of the British public opinion did express itself in favour of such an Exchange.�(295) This statement was presumably inserted in order to counteract the British Government's newly hostile attitude towards compulsory transfer.
Soskin then explained the importance of the exchange of land in enabling the Jewish State to build up a land reserve. This would make possible the settling of masses of Jews on national land - the paramount task of the new State.
The Peel Commission had recommended that from certain areas there be compulsory transfer, while voluntary transfer be retained in other areas. Soskin disagreed and wrote, �The 'exchange' should be compulsory not only in the Plains, as the Royal-Commission urges, but in the hill-country as well, where the majority of the Arab rural population dwell.�(296) [Soskin was not the first to make this suggestion - Ben-Gurion had indicated it in his diary nearly a year earlier.]
In the absence of transfer, Soskin anticipated difficulties arising from Jewish agricultural labour competing with Arab agricultural labour, to the detriment of the former. After considering several possible solutions to this problem, Soskin concluded that in order to avoid the situation �where the natives do the heavy manual work and the immigrants use their brains & capital, we must insist upon the compulsory transfer of the whole rural arab population from the Jewish state into the arab state.�(297)
From the time that the Peel Commission had put forward the transfer proposal, opinions had been expressed on the rate at which transfer could be implemented. Soskin considered that it had to �be done with the greatest speed possible. This is a revolutionary act which has to be finished in the shortest time.� Presumably, he meant that it would be �a revolutionary act� in Palestine where no population transfer had been implemented in modern times. In other parts of the world, however, many successful population transfers had been carried out in previous decades. Soskin added that a transfer over a �long period� would be counteracted by the national increase of the Arab population.
Soskin claimed that the Arabs would benefit from such transfer and �would be freed from exploitation by the effendis.� To carry out this transfer, he proposed the setting up of a Commission. Among their tasks would be selecting areas in Transjordan for colonisation of the Arabs.(298) Paragraphs dealing with finance were also included in this memorandum.(299)
Some days after editing this memorandum, Shertok obviously had second thoughts about the wisdom of submitting it to the Woodhead Commission. This we know from a note written to Dr. Joseph - the initials of the author are illegible - on 13 June 1938. In this note the author wrote, �Mr. Shertok has induced Dr. Soskin not to send in his memorandum on Transfer of Population.�(300)
Another memorandum for the Woodhead Commission which mentioned the Peel Commission's transfer proposal was written by Ussishkin. He submitted it towards the end of July 1938, and it was immediately published as a supplement to the Jerusalem newspaper, the �Palestine Review�. In this memorandum, Ussishkin discussed the transfer from both political and ideological grounds. He pointed out that the Peel Commission had �made a sound political proposal:- to expropriate the land and to transfer the Arabs to Transjordan and to other Arab states... from a practical standpoint the proposal is sound and proper.�(301) From the moral point of view, however, Ussishkin thought that perhaps it would be difficult. He considered that �no Jew and no Zionist� would say �that the million Arabs now in the country must leave it.�(302)
At the hearings before the Woodhead Commission, Benjamin Akzin, a constitutional lawyer and political scientist, and then head of the Political Division of the New Zionist Organisation, submitted evidence on behalf of that Organisation. This was the organisation set up by the Revisionists after they seceded from the World Zionist Organisation in 1935. In his statement, Akzin reminded the Woodhead Commission that the Peel Commission had proposed a possibly compulsory transfer of Arabs, partly in order to increase the absorptive capacity in Palestine for Jews, and partly for other reasons. However, since that time the Colonial Secretary had �pointed out that a compulsory transfer of Arabs is not be spoken of.� Akzin wished �on behalf of the New Zionist Organisation to associate myself with this attitude. We believe that the compulsory transfer of the native Arab population from Palestine or from any part of Palestine would be greatly inequitable to the Arab population.� The New Zionist Organisation rejected the idea �that the expulsion of part of the native population� should form part of Jewry's programme and hoped �that the question of compulsory transfer of Arabs is already no longer on the agenda.�
With regard to voluntary transfer, Akzin considered it �extremely unlikely� that the Arabs would be willing to leave voluntarily, since their wages, land holdings and standard of living in the neighbourhood of Jewish settlements were rapidly improving.(303) In answer to a question as to whether an Arab would leave if he were to be given a good price for his land, Akzin answered, �Some of them will leave but others will continue to stay� since they could �get richer simply by waiting.�(304)
From the above, we can see that Akzin was reiterating what Jabotinsky, the leader of the Revisionists, had said a year earlier, after the publication of the Peel Report. It must be remembered that the Revisionists were violently against any partition of Palestine and envisaged a Jewish State in the entire area of Mandatory Palestine (which included Transjordan), in which the Jews would form the majority. Due to their disagreements with the official Zionist Organisation on this and other matters, they had, a few years earlier, seceded from the Organisation. As a result, they did not have to take an actual decision on the proposal regarding the transfer of Arabs, following the publication of the Peel Report.
In this connection, Yehoyada Haim, in his thesis entitled �Zionist Attitudes towards the Palestinian Arabs 1936-39� asks what the position of the Revisionists would have been on transfer �in the event the partitioned Jewish State was imposed upon them by the British and they had to determine future policy in such a State.� Haim considers that �had they been forced to make such a choice... the Revisionists might not have differed greatly from those Official Zionists�,(305) who advocated transfer by compulsion, �inducements� or by �indirect pressure�.(306)
Retraction of Peel Commission Recommendations
In June 1937, the Arabs resumed and even intensified their acts of terror and assassination in Palestine, against both Jews and British officials.
On 23 December 1937, the British Government issued a �White Paper�, entitled �Policy in Palestine�, in the form of a Despatch from the Colonial Secretary to the High Commissioner for Palestine. Paragraph 3 of this Despatch stated, �In view of the public attention that has been devoted to criticism of certain features of the tentative plan of partition which is outlined in Part iii of the Report of the Royal Commission, I wish to make it clear that His Majesty's Government are in no sense committed to approval of that plan, and in particular that they have not accepted the Commission's proposal for the compulsory transfer in the last resort of Arabs from the Jewish to the Arab area.�(307)
Early drafts of this Government Despatch did not contain this phrase! In November 1937, the Colonial Secretary Ormsby-Gore submitted to the Cabinet a memorandum entitled �Policy in Palestine�(308) which included a �Draft of Proposed Despatch to Acting High Commissioner for Palestine�.(309) Nowhere in this draft was there even a hint on the rejection of the compulsory transfer of Arabs! The �terms of reference� for a further Commission which he intended to set up included the making of recommendations regarding �exchange of land and population�(310) - but no mention of any rejection of compulsory transfer!
Following the Colonial Secretary's memorandum, the British Foreign Secretary, submitted a memorandum to the Cabinet. With regards to transfer, this memorandum stated: �It is proposed that the quarter of a million Arabs at present in this area should be removed. As they are likely to be extremely unwilling to go, as there is very little alternative land of equal value on which they could be settled, and as nothing like a comparable number of Jews exists in the proposed Arab State against whom they could be exchanged, this operation, which would have to be carried out by force, is likely to be one of great difficult.�(311) As we can see, the Foreign Secretary's objections to forcible transfer seem to stem from practical rather than ideological considerations.
In answer, the Colonial Secretary brought out a further memorandum in which he argued that the Foreign Office memorandum had ignored �certain fundamental realities of the Palestine problem and of our position in relation to that problem.�(312) This memorandum included a �Revised Draft of Proposed Despatch.� However, presumably as a result of pressure from various quarters, the wording of the recommendations to be made by this further Commission was amended to read �the possibility of voluntary exchanges of land and population.�(313)
On 3 December, the Cabinet discussed the question of Palestine. Various memoranda by both the Colonial and Foreign Secretaries were placed before them.(314) The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, opened the meeting by stating his own views on the entire question. At the end of his remarks, he mentioned the transfer proposal. �It had been suggested in the Memorandum by the Foreign Secretary that some of the Arab inhabitants of the Jewish zone might have to be removed forcibly into the Arab zone. He had ascertained from the Colonial Secretary that he had no such intention. He suggested that that might be announced at the same time as the Despatch was published.�(315)
The Prime Minister was followed by the Foreign Secretary, who began by thanking the Colonial Secretary for �the careful consideration he had given to his Memorandum.� With regard to transfer he commented that �He would also welcome a statement that forcible removal of the Arab population would not take place.�(316)
Later in the meeting the Colonial Secretary spoke stressing that �any idea of running away from that policy [of partition] at the present time was impracticable.� On transfer he said that �it was, however, not necessary to suggest that we intended to enforce the removal of the Arab population from the Jewish zone.�(317)
The meeting concluded with the Cabinet agreeing that the Colonial Secretary redraft the Despatch in the light of the Cabinet discussion. It was also agreed �that an announcement should be made (whether in the revised draft Despatch or otherwise) that under the policy of partition the Government had no intention of enforcing the movement of Arabs from the Jewish to the Arab zone.�(318)
On 17 December, the Colonial Secretary produced a �Second Revised Draft of Proposed Despatch� in which he �endeavoured to meet the views expressed by my colleagues.�(319) It was in this �second revised draft� that the statement saying that the British Government had rejected the compulsory transfer of Arabs, first appeared!(320)
As can be seen, this statement was a reversal of the �Statement of Policy by His Majesty's Government� which had been issued together with the publication of the Peel Report in July 1937. This �Statement of Policy� had in no way suggested �that they (the British Government) have not accepted the Commission's proposal for the compulsory transfer in the last resort of Arabs from the Jewish to the Arab area.� In this matter the British Government radically changed its policy!
The Colonial Secretary's Despatch announced that the British Government was sending a Technical Commission to Palestine whose function was to look into boundaries, economic and financial problems, religious rights, and �the possibility of voluntary exchanges of land and population, and the prospects of providing by works of land development room for further settlement to meet the needs of persons desiring to move from one area to another.�(321)
The �Partition Commission�, as it was officially called, headed by Sir John Woodhead, arrived in Palestine in April 1938, stayed there for three months and subsequently published their Report in November 1938. Chapter 8 of this Report was entitled �The Possibility of Exchanges and Transfer of Population.� In this chapter, the Commission examined �the possibility of voluntary exchanges of land and population and the prospects of making provision by works of land development, for a larger population than exists to-day and thereby facilitating the transfer of persons who desire to move from one area to another.�(322) A footnote appended to the word �voluntary� stated that in the Despatch of 23 December, �it was announced that His Majesty's Government have not accepted the Royal Commission's proposal for the compulsory transfer in the last resort of Arabs from the Jewish to the Arab area. On behalf of the Jews it was also made clear to us that Jewish opinion would be opposed to the exercise of any degree of compulsion.(323)
The source for this �Jewish opinion� was not stated! Ben-Gurion and Weizmann supported the transfer proposal as set out by the Peel Commission, and there were favourable opinions expressed by Jews at the World Unity Council, the Zionist Congress at Zurich and in the British Houses of Parliament. It is true that there were other Jewish leaders who were opposed to compulsory transfer. It would therefore have been much more accurate and fair for the Woodhead Commission to have written that Jewish opinion was divided on this question.
After quoting figures for Jews resident in the proposed Arab State,(324) the Woodhead Commission concluded that �from the figures given in the previous paragraph� there was �little possibility of the voluntary exchange of rural population between the two states.�(325) The Peel Commission had been fully aware of these figures(326) but had not been deterred by them from making recommendations regarding population exchange. The Peel Commission had hoped that a substantial area of land could be made available as a result of irrigation for the resettlement of the Arabs. However, the Woodhead Commission came to their conclusion purely from the population figures and only began considering the irrigation potential at a later stage of their Report.
After having discounted the possibility of an exchange of land and population, the Woodhead Commission considered the possibility of �a transfer on a voluntary basis of the Arab population.�(327) They rejected this for the following reasons. Firstly, irrigation survey had shown that there would be insufficient land �available for the resettlement of more than a fraction of the number of Arabs included in the proposed Jewish State.�(328) Secondly, �Even if it were possible to make land available for resettlement... it is unlikely that the Arabs themselves would be willing to leave their home lands and start afresh in a new area.� The Report went on to speak of the Arabs' attachment �for their ancestral lands� and compared the climate in the Jordan Valley unfavourably with that of the plains and hills.(329) Thirdly, �It is in any event improbable that the Arab cultivator would be prepared to migrate in order to create space for the Jews... The Arabs look upon the Jews as foreigners invading their country.�(330)
�After studying the question with particular care�, wrote the Woodhead Commission, �we have been forced to conclude, for the reasons given above, that the problem created by the large number of Arabs in the proposed Jewish State cannot be solved by means of either an exchange or a transfer of population.�(331)
We can thus see, that in the course of sixteen months, the Peel Commission's recommendation for a transfer of population, compulsory if necessary, was reversed by the Woodhead Commission's rejection of even a purely voluntary transfer.
Incidentally, at the time when the Woodhead Report was being published, Shertok in a lecture to emissaries of the Keren Hayesod informed his audience that by mutual agreement an Arab tribe had just transferred to Transjordan. The Zionists had bought land in the Bet Shean valley on which lived part of an Arab tribe - the remainder living in Transjordan. The Zionists also purchased land in Transjordan for this tribe who is �transferring its people to Transjordan and vacating the land here.� Shertok said, �We are not only buying land but we are also decreasing the number of Arabs in western Palestine.� He pointed out that these Arabs were not being expelled - on the contrary, they were improving their conditions.(332)
Another example of such a transfer was reported by Abraham Granovsky to a meeting of the Directorate of the J.N.F. held in July 1938, The meeting was informed that the J.N.F. had come to an arrangement with the head of an Arab tribe for the transfer of this tribe from the land the J.N.F. had purchased from them in Palestine to a larger area of land in Transjordan which the J.N.F. had purchased for them.(333)
The Woodhead Report was published on 9 November 1938. It was accompanied by a �Statement of Policy� from the British Government that said, �The political, administrative, and financial difficulties involved in the proposal to create independent Arab and Jewish states inside Palestine are so great that this solution of the problem is impracticable.�(334)
Two days later, Sir Laurie Hammond, a member of the Peel Commission, wrote a letter to Weizmann. He blamed this �impracticability� on the fact that the British Government had �denounced the compulsory transfer of population.� He adhered firmly to the belief that �Jew and Arab under present conditions cannot live together, their standards of civilisation being �centuries apart�. He said that Iraq's greatest need was an increase in population. �For the price we have paid for public insecurity�, continued Hammond, �50,000 Arab families could have been started in Iraq, and the sub-district of Beisan, and the Galilean Hills cleared ready for intensive cultivation by those who have the means and energy for it.�(335) Here, Hammond exceeds the Peel Report's recommendations which whilst referring to compulsory transfer for the Beisan, suggests in the Galilee a transfer which �could be effected on a voluntary basis.� Hammond's letter mentions �clearing� the Galilean Hill, as well.
Following the publication of the Woodhead Report, both Houses of the British Parliament again debated the Palestine question and in the course of these debates, a few speakers briefly mentioned the transfer of the Arab population.
The debate in the House of Commons took place on 24 November 1938. In his speech, a Conservative member, Sir Walter Smiles, spoke about the displacement of Arabs in Libya which was caused by the settlement of Italian colonists on their land. He pointed out that these Arabs received compensation and suggested �that it might be just possible for something on these lines to be done in Palestine.� He then referred to the Greco-Turkish population exchange which he understood had turned out very well. �No matter what sacrifice or discomfort people who were transferred were put to at one time�, said Smiles, �it might be better to get it over at once as the Greeks who left Asia Minor and went to Greece learned, rather than to be always at enmity with their neighbours.�(336)
Captain Victor Cazalet, another Conservative member, queried whether Palestine could absorb a large Jewish immigration. He felt that at present it could not but added that he believed �that if we could get a great settlement of Arabs in Transjordan, we could place an enormous number of Jews in the next two or three years greatly to the benefit of the Jews and the Arabs.�(337) As we have seen, this idea of transfer of Arabs to Transjordan had been suggested repeatedly in the previous years. It required only the necessary capital and will.
In the debate in the House of Lords on 8 December 1938, Lord Snell, leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords, came out in favour of transfer of Arabs from Palestine. [In 1929, Lord Snell, then Harry Snell, a Labour Member of the House of Commons, had sat on the Shaw Commission which was sent out to Palestine after the pogroms of August 1929. In the subsequent Report, Snell dissented from the majority and contributed a long note of reservations, in which he dissociated himself from the general attitude of his colleagues towards the Palestine problem as well as from some of their criticisms and conclusions.]
In his speech to the Lords, Lord Snell said, �What we are doing in Palestine, or what should be done, is not the only illustration of its kind. We find that in Libya, for instance, the Arabs are displaced to meet the needs of modern cultivation. The 'Protector of Islam' had adopted a programme of compulsory transference of Arabs from one territory to another in the interest of closer settlement.� He added that there had been no protest against this and it was apparently approved of by everybody. �If it is a right policy in Libya�, said Snell, �I cannot see why it is a wrong policy if adopted in Palestine.�(338)
Viscount Samuel, who a year and a half earlier in his speech to the Lords had come out strongly against the partition plan and the transfer of the Arab population, now made a glancing reference to the population transfer. Samuel, speaking of his visit to Palestine in the previous spring, said of the Peel Commission's proposals, �With regard to frontiers, to enclaves, to transfer of populations, customs barriers, defence, finance, public security, this plan was revealed as nothing less than a monstrosity. It could not stand up to close examination.�(339)
The final speaker to mention population transfer was Viscount Swinton. As a past Colonial Secretary, he had for four years been responsible for the administration of Palestine. Swinton did not agree with a previous speaker (Lord Lothian), that Jew and Arab would not work together and that it was therefore necessary to make two enclaves �with the Jew separate in one and the Arab separate in the other.� He felt that this was an almost impossible undertaking adding that �when the Royal Commission attempted it, they only found a solution on the basis of saying 250,000 Arabs will either pass into the Jewish State or be transferred out of it - and where on earth they were to be transferred, it passes the wit of man to understand.�(340)
The British Government then attempted to convene a Jewish-Arab Conference in London early in 1939. However at this Conference, no agreement was reached - the Arab delegates refused even to meet with the Jewish delegates. Two months later, the British Government published a White Paper - the harshest of all their White Papers on Palestine - which severely limited future Jewish immigration into Palestine and effectively put an end at the time, to any hope of establishing a Jewish Home in Palestine.