British Official John Chancellor Seeks to Halt the Jewish National Home but Fails to Overcome Zionist Drive and Arab Unwillingness to Cooperate, 1930

January 17, 1930

Updated May 11, 2026, with the full document; introduction originally posted in July 2024.

Cabinet Papers 108 (1930)/file 20835; also found in Great Britain, Colonial Office files, CO 733/183/77050, Part 1

Sir John Chancellor was the third British high commissioner in Palestine, serving from 1928 to 1931. When he began his tenure, he had no particular positive or negative attitude toward the Zionists or Arabs. By the end of his three years of service, however, he was staunchly pro-Arab to the point where he wanted the Jewish national home stopped in its tracks. He grew to believe that there “was bitter hostility of the Arabs in Palestine for the Zionists.”

In great detail, Chancellor expressed his anti-Zionist or more specifically pro-Arab views in this January 17, 1930, dispatch. Some 90 pages, it is the longest known dispatch from a high commissioner in Palestine seeking a drastic policy change.

Chancellor came to view the concept of a Jewish national home as unjust to the interests of the local Arabs and a detriment to the British Empire, which had geopolitical interests with many Muslim Arab states and leaders. During his tenure in Palestine, major communal Arab-Jewish riots occurred in August 1928 and August 1929. They forced him to look at what caused those disturbances. Chancellor’s pro-Arab views evolved into influencing the conclusions of major investigatory reports that analyzed economic causes underlying Arab unrest in Palestine: Shaw Commission (1929), Hope-Simpson Commission (1930) and Johnson-Crosbie Report (1931).

These reports concluded in one way or another that the growth of the Jewish national home was a threat to tranquility in Palestine. Chancellor took the view that there was no more open land available for Jewish development, contrary to the Zionist view that with increased economic investment, extensive agriculture could be shifted to intensive farming, thereby supporting a larger overall population. Chancellor, however, believed that the impoverished and severely indebted Arab peasantry needed to be protected against becoming landless. He believed that Arab agricultural workers might increasingly be turned off their lands and embrace lawlessness. Chancellor recognized that the growth of Zionism (Jewish land purchase and Jewish immigration) was almost unstoppable because of the unrelenting Jewish drive to build a national home. He realized also that there was a pervasive inability of Arab leadership and often unwillingness to thwart Zionist development privately because significant numbers of Arab leaders were deeply engaged in land sales or in collaboration with the Zionists in other ways to benefit themselves. Fragmented Arab political leadership was caused in part by being tied to villages, localities and sometimes a narrow focus on personal rather than national well-being.   

Chancellor made the case that it was the British who had to protect the Arab population against displacement. His paternalism for the Arab population was evident, and such Zionist leaders as Yehoshua Hankin, Yosef Weitz and Chaim Arlosoroff realized the severe threat that Chancellor’s views posed. By the middle of 1930, Chancellor persuaded the Colonial Office to issue the October 1930 Passfield White Paper, emphasizing the need to slow down Jewish growth. Although the 1930 White Paper was rescinded and Chancellor’s outlook against Jewish growth was not fully implemented in the 1930s, the goals of the Passfield White Paper, namely limiting Jewish immigration and halting Jewish land purchase, were eventually applied against the Zionists in the 1939 White Paper. By then, another had decade passed in which the Jewish national home grew enormously organizationally, demographically and physically.

Chancellor enumerated why the Arabs in Palestine were so vexed and what should be done to assist them. He pointed to Arab grievances but also knew full well that the Arab community, its leadership and the majority-peasant population could not and would not withstand the Zionist commitment to build a state. He persuaded his colleagues in Palestine that the Balfour Declaration and the 1922 League of Nations Mandate that governed British policy were not in broader British Middle Eastern interests. 

Specifically, Chancellor suggested that immigration and land purchase be curtailed. Short of stopping Zionist growth entirely in 1930-31, Chancellor’s ideas spawned half a dozen laws and regulations aimed at keeping keep Arab peasants on the land they worked. He had the Palestine administration pass a law to prevent Arabs from being displaced through collusive mortgage debt forfeiture between an Arab seller and Jewish buyer. He removed loopholes in the existing agricultural tenant protection laws so they would stay on lands they worked and perhaps refuse compensation to leave lands sold to Jewish buyers. He instituted an investigation to determine how many Arabs were actually landless. Chancellor could not persuade his colleagues to provide massive funding for an agricultural bank that would have enabled some of the peasants to emerge from perennial indebtedness.  

A British objective to prevent Arabs from selling land to Jews failed. The Palestine Arab press and British officials continually complained publicly and privately that Palestinian Arabs willingly, actively and continuously sold land to Jewish buyers. Many editorials in the Palestinian Arab press claimed that their leadership looked the other way when land passed from Arabs to Jews. The application of the 1939 British White Paper on Palestine, which restricted Jewish immigration and clamped down on Jewish land purchase, did slow down but did not stop the growth of a Jewish state. Illegal Jewish immigration and Jewish land purchase continued until Israel was established. Likewise, Arab sales continued, with overwhelming evidence provided in the 1945 Land Transfer Inquiry Report about the magnitude of land sales in the early 1940s when it was supposed to be prohibited.

Chancellor’s choice to impose legal restrictions on Jewish state building failed. Neither he nor other British officials could stop an economic process where buyers and sellers sought each other out vigorously and continuously. In 1940, a Colonial Office official, Sir John Shuckburgh, in commenting on Zionist land purchase restrictions noted that “the Arab had to be protected against himself.” Ernest Bevin as foreign minister after World War II wanted to stop Jewish state building, as did President Harry Truman’s State Department. British paternalism to assist the Arabs or stop Zionism as a movement did not succeed in large measure because the Arab population in Palestine itself was not fully committed and engaged as individuals and as a collective in preventing Zionism’s growth.

— Ken Stein, July 12, 2024

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PALESTINE: HIGH COMMISSIONER’S VIEWS ON POLICY

Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies

I CIRCULATE for the information of my colleagues a dispatch from Sir John Chancellor on the situation in Palestine. The dispatch was written before the findings of the Shaw Commission were known. I am circulating a separate memorandum dealing with the Commission’s Report and the situation arising out of it.

Colonial Office, March 27, 1930. — P.

The Right Honorable Lord Passfield, P.C.,

His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies

(Confidential.)

My Lord,

1. I have the honor to submit for your Lordship’s consideration my views as to the causes which led to the recent outbreaks in Palestine, and my recommendations as to the measures necessary to prevent their recurrence.

2. The principal immediate cause of the disturbances was undoubtedly the dispute between Jews and Moslems concerning their rights and claims at the Western or Wailing Wall. The Western Wall dispute was, however, only a secondary issue, and until it has been considered in relation to the situation as a whole, its importance as a cause of the bitter hostility of the Arabs towards the Jews, which the recent outbreaks have revealed, may be over-estimated.

3. In order to explain the situation in Palestine it is necessary to examine the Western or Wailing Wall question in detail, and the history of the relations between the Arabs and the Jews and the Mandatory since 1915. The dispute concerning the rights and claims at the Wailing Wall is dealt with in detail in the enclosed Memorandum,* and I shall in this dispatch refer only to some of its more important points. The main features of the relations of the Arabs, the Jews and the Mandatory in Palestine during the last ten years are described in the following paragraphs.

4. The first event of importance in the relations between His Majesty’s Government and the Arab peoples generally was the correspondence in 1915 between Sheriff Hussein of Mecca and Sir Henry McMahon, His Majesty’s High Commissioner for Egypt. That correspondence, known as the McMahon letters, has not been published in whole.

That part of the correspondence which has been made public makes it known that His Majesty’s Government promised Sheriff Hussein of Mecca that they would recognize and support the independence of the Arab peoples then under Ottoman rule, subject to the exclusion of certain geographical areas, on condition that they revolted against the Turks.

It will be seen from letters Nos. 5, 6, and 8 in Command Paper 1700, 1922, that the excluded areas were not definitely described. When the Arab leaders of Palestine became aware of the correspondence, they believed that in the context the intention of His Majesty’s Government was to exclude from the pledge only that part of Syria in regard to which the interests of France had long been recognized. In the light of subsequent events (particularly the Balfour declaration) the Arabs now believe that His Majesty’s Government illegitimately made use of that indefiniteness of description to evade the fulfillment of pledges previously made to them, and to impose upon Palestine the mandatory system of government, together with its essential feature, the policy of establishing a Jewish National Home in their country.

5. The next event of importance was the Balfour Declaration of November 1917. In that Declaration His Majesty’s Government stated that Athey were in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a National home for the Jewish peoples it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. By Christmas 1917 the southern half of Palestine was in British occupation, and the inhabitants speedily learned the character of that Declaration. They received it with incredulity.

6. In 1918 the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in Palestine and Syria issued what is known as the Anglo-French Declaration. That Declaration reads as follows:

*Le but qu’envisagent la France et la Grande-Bretagne en poursuivant en Orient la guerre d’echain’ee par l’ambittion allemande, c’est l’affranchissement complet et d’efinitef des peuples si longtemps opprimes par les Turcs et l’etablissement de Gouvernements et administrations nationaux puisant leur autorite dans l’initiative et le libre choix des populations indegenes. Pour donner suite `a ces intentions la France et la Grande-Bretagne sont d’accord pour encourager et aider `a l`etablissement en Syrie et M’esopotamie, actuellement liberees par les Allies, et dans les territoires dont ils poursuivent la liberation et pour reconnaître ceus-ci aussitôt qu`ils seront effectivement e’tablis. Loin de vouloir imposer aux populations de ces regions telles ou telles institutions, elles n ont d’autre souci qui d’assurer, par leur appui et par une assistance efficace, le fonctionnement normal des Gouvernements et administratons qu’eles se seront librement donn’ees, assurer une justice impartiale et egale pur tous, faciliter le developpement enconomique du pays en suscitant et en encourageant les initiatives locales, favoriser la diffusion de l’instruction, mette fin aux divisions trop longtemps exploitees par la politique turque — tel est le role que les. Deux Governements allies revendiquent dans les territoires liberees. 7 Novembre 1918*

While the Commander-in-Chief’s Declaration, which was given wide publicity, made no specific mention of Palestine it is a fact that the northern half of Palestine was at that time included in the Vilayet of Beirut; and the Arabs of Palestine believed either that Palestine was included in the scope of the declaration or, if that were not so, that the reason for its exclusion was to be found in the Balfour Declaration.

7. In 1919 the Principal Allied and the Associated Powers adopted the Covenant of the League of Nations, Article XXII of which definitely assigned the status of tutelage to certain territories detached from the enemy on the conclusion of peace. It was stated in that Article the “certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.”

8. The announcement of the application to their country of the mandatory system was received by the Arabs of Palestine with consternation. In 1919 the Allies contemplated sending an Inter-Allied Commission, in which the United States was to participate, to the Middle East in order to ascertain the wishes of the peoples in so far as the selection of the Mandatories was concerned. No Inter-Allied Commission was set up. The President of the United States, however, sent a Commission appointed by himself, the members of which traveled through Palestine and Syria and took evidence from individuals in various places. Their report was not made public by the Government of the United States.

It is claimed by the Arabs that the Allies did not attempt to ascertain the wishes of the communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire as laid down in Article XXII of the Covenant, and that, therefore, the wishes of those peoples were not a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.

9. In 1918 a Zionist commission with liaison with Commander-in-Chief was established in Palestine, and its presence was a source of irritation to the Arab inhabitants of the country.

10. In 1920 the country became disturbed: Arab national sentiment was aroused by the establishment of King Feisul in Damascus, and at the pilgrimage season a serious anti-Jewish outbreak occurred in Jerusalem. After these riots a Military Commission of Inquiry under the Presidency of Major General P.C. Pelin was appointed in Palestine to investigate the disturbances. That Commission submitted a Report to the Commander-in-Chief, but the Report was never made public.

11. During the period 1918-1920 Arab incredulity with regard to Balfour Declaration was changed into hostility; and whatever may have been the causes of the Arab riots in Jerusalem in March 1920, those riots gave expression to the Arab feelings of hatred for the Zionist policy. In April 1920, shortly after the outbreak of the riots in Jerusalem, the Principal Allied Powers represented at San Remo conferred the Mandate for Palestine on Great Britain, and at the same time endorsed the policy of Great Britain as expressed in the Balfour Declaration.

12. In July, 1920, His Majesty’s Government appointed Sir Herbert Samuel to be High Commissioner for Palestine, and he initiated the Civil Administration of the country.

It should be observed that the Treaty of Serves contained a renunciation of Palestine by Turkey; but that Treaty was never ratified by Turkey.

13. Between the beginning of 1915 and July 1920 therefore the principal features of the history of Palestine were:

(i) In 1915 a pledge was given by His Majesty’s Government to support the independence of the Arab peoples, the terms of which were not free from ambiguity. (See paragraph 4 above.)

(Palestine was not then occupied by the Allies and was still part of the Turkish Empire, the northern part of Palestine being then included in the Vilayet of Beirut and Jerusalem being a separate sanjak.)

(ii) On the 2nd November, 1917, the Balfour Declaration was made, giving the Jews a special status in Palestine. (See paragraph 5 above.)

(Palestine was not then occupied by the Allies and was still part of the Turkish Empire.)

(iii) In November 1918 the Anglo-French Declaration was made encouraging the aspirations of the Arab peoples for “national governments” in Syria and Mesopotamia. (See paragraph 6 above.)

(iv) In 1919 the Covenant of the League of Nations was signed, Article XXII of which gave a certain status to communities formerly of the Turkish Empire. (See paragraph 7 above.)

(Palestine was then occupied by the Allies, but was not detached from the Turkish Empire.)

(v) In April 1920 the Balfour Declaration was endorsed by the Allied powers at San Remo and the Mandate for Palestine was conferred upon Great Britain under Article XXII of the Covenant. (Palestine was then occupied by the Allies, but was not detached from the Turkish Empire.)

14. In the year 1920 nominated representatives of the people were introduced into an Advisory Council, whom the High Commissioner was bound to consult before exercising his legislative powers. An important step towards ensuring Moslem control over purely Islamic affairs was taken in 1921, when a Supreme Moslem Shari’a Council, elected by adult Moslems, was constituted for the control and management of the Moslem Waqfs (Pious Foundations) and the affairs of the Shari’a (Religious Law).

During the same period the Zionist Organization (i.e., the Palestine Agency of the Zionist Organization in London) pursued a vigorous policy that led to the immigration on a considerable scale of Jews from Eastern Europe.

15. In the spring of 1921 anti-Jewish disturbances again broke out at Jaffa, where the immigrants are usually disembarked, and attacks were made on neighboring Jewish Colonies. A Commission of Inquiry was appointed by Sir Herbert Samuel to inquire into and report upon the disturbances. The Report of that Commission was published in Command Paper 1540, 1921.

16. In October 1921 the Council of the League of Nations authorized His Majesty’s Government to administer Palestine in the spirit of the draft mandate which by then had been public for some months. Before the Mandate could enter into force it was necessary that its terms should be approved by the Council of the League of Nations. In virtue, however, of the authority given by the Council of the League of Nations to His Majesty’s Government, Palestine was, from that date, administered in the spirit of the draft mandate.

17. In July 1922 the terms of the Palestine Mandate were formally approved by the Council of the League of Nations. The Mandate came into full effect in September 1923, following a notification to that effect addressed to His Majesty’s Government by the Secretary-General of the League of Nations. In July 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne was signed, and ratified in August 1924. By that treaty Turkey effectively renounced Palestine.

18. In October 1921 the Moslem Christian Association, founded in 1918, sent a delegation to London, which entered into discussion with the Secretary of State (Mr. Winston Churchill) as regards the draft Order-in-Council that had been prepared with the object of giving a constitution to Palestine. The purport of those discussions is given in Command Paper 1700 of 1922. The Arab Delegation adopted an attitude of uncompromising hostility to any constitution under which the development of a Jewish National Home, however conceived, would be possible. These discussions led to the definition of the policy of His Majesty’s Government in Palestine. (See Statement of British Policy in Palestine, Enclosure in No. 5 of Command Paper 1700 of 1922.) This definition of policy was formally accepted by the Zionist Organization; but it was not accepted by the Arabs because it would have implied acceptance of the policy of the Jewish National Home.

19. The Palestine Order-in-Council of the 10th August 1922, which provided for the establishment of an elected Legislative Council, came into effect on the 1st September, 1922. Elections for the Legislative Council were held in the first half of 1923. The majority of the Arab population abstained from the polls and so confirmed the attitude of uncompromising hostility to the constitution that had been taken by the Moslem-Christian Delegation in London. (See Command Paper 1889, 1923.)

20. In May 1925 the Palestine (Amendment) Order-in-Council was made, by which the elections were declared null and void, and legislative power was vested in the High Commissioner, who was empowered to promulgate ordinances after consultation with an Advisory Council. The Palestine Government attempted to reconstitute the Advisory Council, consisting of official and nominated unofficial member of the same composition as the rejected Legislative Council. These attempts were unsuccessful, inasmuch as the unofficial members, while at first accepting the invitations sent to them, were in the end prevailed upon by the public opinion not to sit in the Council. The Advisory Council has since then consisted solely of official members.

21. A further attempt to overcome Arab opposition to the policy of His Majesty’s Government was made in 1923, when the offer to recognize an Arab Agency, similar to the Jewish Agency, was made. That offer was rejected; the Arabs argued that they required no agency to represent them in their own country, and that their acceptance would have implied recognition of the Jewish Agency. (See Command Paper 1889, 1923.)

22. In 1926, however, certain Arab notables expressed a desire to enter into formal discussions with the Palestine Government as to the possibility of finding a basis for the establishment of representative government; and certain proposals were submitted by them to Lord Plumer. In view of the fact that he was then about to set up elected municipal councils, Lord Plumer decided that no further steps towards establishing representative government should be taken until experience had been gained of the manner in which municipal electors exercised their responsibilities and in which elected councilors performed their duties in local administration.

23. Shortly after my arrival in Palestine at the end of 1928, the Arab Executive submitted to me a request that some form of representative Government should be established in Palestine. I informed the Executive that I would consider their request.

Confidential conversations on the subject were conducted with certain of the Arab political leaders by the Chief Secretary during May 1929, which resulted in the Arab leaders agreeing to cooperate in the working of a nominated Legislative Council with an unofficial majority and with the powers intended to be given to the abortive Legislative Council of 1922. Proposals for the establishment of such a Legislative Council were submitted to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in my Secret Dispatch of the 12th June, 1929.

In that dispatch I expressed the opinion that it would be difficult to resist much longer the demand for the conversion of the present Advisory Council into some form of legislative body with a view to associating the people of Palestine with the administration of the country, especially in view of the fact that the demands of the Arab community for representative institutions had become more insistent since the establishment of representative government in the politically less-advanced territory of Trans-Jordan.

These proposals were still under consideration at the time of the outbreaks in August.

24. It will have been seen from the preceding paragraphs that the formal efforts made to secure the cooperation of the people of Palestine in the government of the country have been rejected by the Arabs on the ground that they were designed to give effect to a policy to which they were bitterly opposed.

The present position is:

(i) That the Arabs have not accepted the Palestine Mandate, on the ground that it gives direct government to the Mandatory and thus goes beyond the terms of Article XXII of the Covenant as applied to certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire;

(ii) That the Arabs believe that direct government was introduced by the Mandatory Power because without it the policy of the Balfour Declaration could not be fulfilled;

(iii) That the Arabs have not accepted the Balfour Declaration or the definition of British Policy in Palestine stated in Command Paper 1700, 1922;

(iv) that the Arabs have objected to Articles 4, 6, and 11 of the Mandate on the grounds that their provisions do, in operation, lead to preferential treatment for the Jews in regard to the establishment and development of the Jewish National Home, and do, therefore, prejudice the civil rights of the existing inhabitants. And thence they consider that these Articles are in conflict with the second half of the Balfour Declaration.

25. Despite the failure to gain Arab cooperation in the government of the country, the Administration set up by the Mandatory has in some measure succeeded in promoting the development of the material resources of Palestine to the well-being of the population as a whole. The Government has given the country a railway service, modern postal and telephone facilities, and opportunities for employment on public works. A system of public education, in which instruction is given in the vernacular tongue, has been created. Local government, elective in character, has been developed.

The British officials generally have established relations of mutual confidence with the inhabitants of the country with whom they work.

But the Central Government has had few opportunities of establishing contact with the leaders of Arab opinion. This lack of contact has been productive of misgiving in regard to legislation. Any acts of the Government which appeared to be ambiguous or partisan in spirit became at once the cause of suspicion and mistrust. That distrust could only be dissipated through intimate contact between Arabs and the Government; such contact could not be made unless the Arabs had participation through some representative means in the acts done or contemplated by the central authority.

26. The Arab peoples have never forgotten their pride of race and empire, and the sentiment of Arab nationalism, which was growing before the War, was greatly stimulated by the propaganda of the Allies during the War. Since the War that movement has continued to gather momentum. During the last seven years the Arabs have witnessed the development of Iraq under the principles of Article XXII of the Covenant of the League of Nations, and they have seen that, within a measurable time, Iraq may achieve complete independence. They have also seen the establishment of representative government in Trans-Jordan. The Arabs of Palestine remember that the Arab populations of Iraq, Trans-Jordan and Syria were formerly parts of the Turkish Empire like themselves; and they also remember that in Command Paper 1700 of 1922 it was stated that it was because His Majesty’s Government were bound by a pledge given before the date at which the Covenant of the League of Nations was signed that they were not treated in the same way as “their neighbors” in Iraq and Syria.

27. During the years 1923-29 the Arabs of Palestine have seen the movement for the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine develop. The progress of the works under the monopoly granted to Mr. Rutenberg for developing hydro-electric power from the Jordan was evidence that an important part of the natural resources of the country had been granted to Jewish interests, although many of the Arabs have recognized the value to the country as a whole of the objects to be achieved by the concession. They have seen the grant of a concession for the development of the mineral resources of the Dead Sea to Mr. Novemeysky, a Jew, and Major Tulloch, a British officer, and they fear that the development of a potentially valuable natural resource of the country has passed into Jewish control without consideration of Arab interests.

Furthermore, Arabs have seen from the Press that Jewish bodies have made insistent demands upon the Government, laying stress on the obligations imposed upon the Mandatory by the Palestine Mandate in regard to the establishment of the Jewish National Home. Facts such as these have had the effect of making Arabs fear that the economic and political control of Palestine will pass into Jewish hands. They fear that Jewish domination in Palestine is possible, even though the Jews in Palestine may not be in a majority.

28. The mass immigration of Jews during the years 1924, 1925, and 1926 led to grievous unemployment in Palestine. But since, throughout the period 1926-28, the revenue has been directly or indirectly increased as a result of the influx of Jewish capital and by Jewish immigration and enterprise, it was possible for the Government to make financial provision for relief measures on a considerable scale by anticipating the normal program of Extraordinary Public Works. In the case of many of these relief measures, the Arabs saw only that public works were being executed solely by Jewish labor although paid for from Government funds; but they failed to realize that Jewish capital spent in the country had substantially augmented the revenue, and had helped to make such works possible without increasing the burden upon the taxpayer. The immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe has made the Arabs acutely conscious of the presence among them of an alien population, which is, nevertheless, in Palestine not on sufferance but as of right; and the Jewish authorities and the Jewish press publicly made demands for Jewish immigration on a large scale and for grants of State lands for settlement by Jewish immigrants.

The Jewish Press has not been backward in criticizing adversely the Administration, complaining of its inertia in regard to matters in which Jews consider that they have a right to expect active support.

29. Suspicion and distrust of the policy of the Government have been, and continue to be, the distinguishing features of the Arab political movement, and, as a consequence of Zionism, latent hostility has been the distinguishing feature of the relations between Arabs and Jews. The apparent growth of mutual toleration during the years 1923 to 1928 was not real.

30. That there had been no manifestations of that latent hostility in recent years may be attributed in a large measure to the severe economic depression from which the Jewish National Home movement in Palestine suffered during the years following upon the mass immigration of 1924-1926. During the year 1927 and the first part of 1928 Jewish immigration was suspended, and many Jewish immigrants left the country permanently.

The Arabs saw that the economic depression which followed the Jewish mass immigration in the years 1924-1926 had checked the progress of Zionism in Palestine. They were also aware that the flow of Jewish capital into the country for Jewish enterprises was abating. They therefore believed that the Zionist movement was waning and that they had no longer reason to fear Jewish domination. They believed that Zionism had ceased to be a danger.

31. During the year 1928, however, the movement for broadening the basis of the Jewish Agency by admitting to it non-Zionist Jews, including American Jews who contribute the greater part of the funds for the establishment of the Jewish National Home, revived the fears of the Arabs. The proceedings of the Jewish World Congress at Zurich in July 1929, when the agreement between the Zionist and non-Zionist Jews was ratified, served to confirm those fears. The speeches made by some of the Jewish leaders at Zurich, the Resolutions adopted at the Zionist Congress, and the combination of virtually the whole of the Jews of the world, with their large financial resources, to further the movement for the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine caused the Arabs to realize that Zionism still threatened their interests, as they saw them, and that to continue their apparent acquiescence in the Zionist policy would endanger the fulfillment of Arab national aspirations.

32. In its religious aspect, the Wailing Wall dispute aroused the excitement of the Moslems; but, because their antagonists were Jews, the dispute became a political issue, on which Moslem Arabs were able to enlist the sympathy and support of the Christian Arabs. After the incidents at the Wailing Wall on the 15th and 16th August, 1929, rumors of the designs of the Jews on the Wailing Wall and the Haram-el Sharif spread through the country. These rumors were readily believed by the credulous among the Moslem Arabs, who were thereby roused to a state of religious frenzy, which culminated in acts of violence. Viewed in its relation to these circumstances, the dispute about rights at the Wailing Wall became much more than a question of the rival claims of two religious communities.

33. The details of the Wailing Wall dispute are given in Enclosure I to this dispatch, but the main facts may be summarized as follows:

(i) The Whole property is Moslem pious foundation (Waqf).

(ii) The Moslems have the rights of ownership, and claim that these rights are limited only by a servitude of public right of access to the Wall.

(iii) The Jews claim the right to conduct public worship at the Wall.

(iv) The Jews have, since the British Occupation, sought from time to time to insist upon the congregational character of their practices at the Wall.

(v) The Moslems have continuously protested against all practice which they regarded as Jewish innovations.

(vi) The acts of the Government in checking Jewish innovations have been deemed by Jews to be deliberate humiliations to Jewish prestige, as well as improper denials of their rights.

(vii) In 1925 the Zionist Organization and the National Council of the Jewish Community in Palestine submitted memoranda requesting that their rights at the Wall should be safeguarded. These memoranda were regarded by the Arabs with suspicion. The Local Jewish Press openly demanded the expropriation of the property in the interests of Jews.

(viii) Command Paper No. 3229 of 1928 informed both the Jews and Arabs that “His Majesty’s Government regard it as their duty, and it is their intention, to maintain the established Jewish right to access to the pavement in front of the Wall for the purposes of their devotions, and also their right to bring to the Wall those appurtenances that they were allowed to take to the Wall under the Turkish regime.”

(ix) In regard to appurtenances, the Moslems interpret “were allowed to take” to mean “were officially authorized to take.”

(x) The Jews interpret “were allowed to take” to mean “actually took,” or “were not prevented from taking.”

(xi) In 1926 the Moslems made structural alterations in the area adjacent to the Wailing Wall.

(xii) In the light of advice received from His Majesty’s Government, the Palestine Government decided that they could not order the Moslems to discontinue the new constructions on Moslem property near the Wall, on condition that the worship of Jews was not interfered with.

(xiii) In not forbidding these new constructions, Government were believed by the Jews to be partisan in favor or the Arabs.

(xiv) In Arab opinion, the situation was aggravated by the delay in putting into effect the principles of Command Paper 1229, 1928.

34. An important factor in the Wailing Wall dispute was the position in which the Government was placed. In virtue of the provisions of Article 15 of the Mandate, the Government do not possess the power to determine legal rights at the Wall. The only powers possessed by the Government in that area are those inherent in all Governments in virtue of their obligation to maintain public order. If Government did nothing in regard to the Wall, both Arabs and Jews had ground for complaint. If Government did anything at all, they laid themselves open to charges of partisanship, and their acts in regulating practices at the Wall, except for the purpose of maintaining public order, had, and have, no legal sanction.

35. The conclusions appear to be that:

(1) The Arab hostility to Zionism has existed since 1918.

(2) The immediate causes of the disturbances in August 1929 are to be found in:

(a) The Balfour Declaration;

(b) The growth of Arab nationalism;

(c) An interpretation by the Arabs of the McMahon pledge of 1915 which is not admitted by His Majesty’s Government;

(d) An interpretation by the Arabs of the Anglo-French Declaration of 1918 which was not intended by His Majesty’s Government;

(e) The belief of the Arabs that the Mandate for Palestine is inconsistent with Article XXII of the Covenant of the League of Nations;

(f) The belief of the Arabs that Articles 4, 6 and 11 of the Mandate have been so designed as to enable the Mandatory to justify acts which, if it had not been for those Articles, would be in conflict with the second half of the Balfour Declaration.

(3) The hostility of the Arabs to Zionism found opportunity for expression in the Wailing Wall dispute, primarily religious in character, in which Arab and Jew regarded the Government as the partisan of the other.

36. I now turn to the consideration of the measures to be taken to prevent a recurrence of the recent disturbances.

37. It has been explained in the earlier paragraphs of this dispatch that the belief is general among the Arabs of Palestine that the promises of freedom and self-government, which they maintain were made to them by Great Britain and the Allies, have been broken in order that the movement for the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine might be promoted. The distrust that has been engendered by that belief has not become general. It has embittered our relations with the Arabs in our Mandated territories, and has gained for the people of Palestine the sympathies of the Arabs in neighboring territories in their efforts to obtain self-government. The feeling of antagonism towards the policy of Great Britain in Palestine has now become so deep and so general that it is almost certain that any repetition of the outbreaks in Palestine would be actively supported by incursions of Arabs from the neighboring territories.

Although, owing to the policy pursued in Palestine during the past ten years, doubts, which are freely expressed, have been raised in the minds of the Arabs as to our good faith, they still have a profound belief in British fairness and British justice, provided that the true facts become known to the British people. The refusal of the Arabs to cooperate with the Government has, in a large measure, been the cause of our failure to fulfill the promises of representative government which were made to them, but, as the Arabs saw the situation, cooperation on the terms offered to them implied acquiescence in a policy to which they were bitterly opposed. Be that as it may, that failure has lowered British prestige in all Arab countries.

38. The doubts which are widely felt as to the completeness of the answers of the British Government to the Arab charges of bad faith have weakened the moral basis on which the Government of Palestine must stand if it is to act with conviction and firmness.

The consciousness that the moral basis on which it stands is unsuitable, and the knowledge that it would be exposed to attack by either Jews or Arabs for every important administrative act, has tended to make the Government of Palestine, in its desire to be credited with an attitude of impartiality, deal with questions which arise not solely upon their merits but not uninfluenced by the consideration that any concession made to one side should be balanced by a concession to the other.

39. As a consequence of the recent outbreaks, a wave of Pan-Arab nationalist sentiment has swept over Palestine and the neighboring Arab countries, and it is certain that the political situation will never again be as it was, or appeared to be, before last August.

40. Since the recent outbreaks occurred, members of His Majesty’s Government have, on several occasions, made public statements to the effect that the policy of the Balfour Declaration will be adhered to. Any proposals for the measures to be taken to prevent a repetition of the outbreaks must therefore be based upon the assumption that the Balfour Declaration will continue to be the basis of British policy in Palestine.

On that assumption I am of opinion that as regards future policy in Palestine, there are now two courses open, either:

(1) to withdraw from the Jews the specially privileged position (as compared with the Arab inhabitants of the country) which has been given to them under the Mandate, but which is not justified by the terms of the Balfour Declaration, and to grant the people of Palestine a measure of self-government, or

(2) to continue the present policy unchanged and to enforce the provisions of the Mandate by maintaining in Palestine military forces of sufficient strength to keep order and to protect the Jews from attack by the Arabs in Palestine supported by their sympathizers in the adjacent territories.

41. I reject the second alternative, because it is altogether repugnant to modern sentiment and because it would provide no permanent solution of the present difficulties in Palestine and no palliative apart from repression by force of arms for a situation which has become dangerous and, if allowed to continue, will become a menace to the Empire in its relations not only to the territories adjacent to Palestine, but also to the whole Moslem world. It is only by taking measures on the lines suggested in the first alternative, by showing the Arabs that Great Britain is no less mindful of her obligations to them than of her obligations to the Jews, and that she is equally solicitous for their interests and welfare, that true peace can be restored in Palestine and the sympathy and cooperation of the Arab population secured. Taking long views as to the future welfare of Palestine, that policy would be no less to the interest of the Jewish inhabitants of the country than to the interest of the Arabs. Many of the wiser Jews have already expressed the view that the national home in Palestine cannot be permanently established under the protection of the British bayonets.

This view is widely held by the supporters of the spiritual ideal of Zionism, and by the inhabitants of the Jewish Colonies who live alongside the Arabs and do not desire that special privileges should be conferred upon them; in this they differ from many of the Zionist Jews who do not live and do not intend to live in Palestine.

42. It is necessary to study the question whether it is possible to satisfy such of the demands of the Arabs as may properly be complied with, while ensuring that the Jews shall not be deprived of facilities for establishing a national home in Palestine.

43. The Treaty of Versailles was signed by the Allied and Associated Powers on the 28th June, 1919. In Section XXII of the Covenant of the League of Nations which formed Part I of the Treaty, it is stated that:

“Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a state of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized, subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.”

Among the communities referred to in that Section, Palestine was clearly included.

Article XXII of the Covenant of the League of Nations may be regarded as the organic constitutional document laying down on the authority of the victorious Allies the principles governing the status of Palestine. It embodies the principle that the rights of sovereignty shall be exercised not in the interests of the conquerors, but in the interests of the people of the conquered territories. Further, it is stated in the preamble to the Mandate for Palestine that the Principal Allied Powers agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on the 2nd November, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

Paragraph 8 of Article XXII of the Covenant also provides that the degree of authority, control or administration to be exercised by the Mandatory shall, if not previously agreed upon by the Members of the League, be explicitly defined in each case by the Council of the League of Nations.

In accordance with that provision, the task of drawing up the Mandate was delegated by the Allies to the Council of the League of Nations.

44. In discharging the responsibility for defining the degree of authority, control or administration to be exercised by the Mandatory, the powers of the Council of the League of Nations were, therefore, limited by the provisions of Article XXII of the Covenant and by the policy affirmed in the Balfour Article XXII of the Covenant and by the policy affirmed in the Balfour Declaration. And it may be contended that if and in so far as the provisions of the Mandate are inconsistent with or contrary to the provisions of Article XXII of the Covenant or the Balfour Declaration they are ultra vires, and, therefore, invalid.

45. This view is confirmed by the statements contained in a pamphlet entitled “The Mandate System,” issued by the Secretariat of the League of Nations in 1927. In that pamphlet it is shown that the original intention of the authors of the Covenant was that the terms of all the Mandates should be embodied in the Peace Treaty, and it is stated that “The Mandates contain a series of provisions reaffirming with greater detail and precision the principles laid down in the Covenant.”

In that pamphlet it is further stated that the Mandate is applied to certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire (Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine) which have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until they are able to stand alone. At present they are allowed a certain measure of self-government, while at the same time obliged to accept the assistance given to them by the Mandatory, in the selection of which the wishes of the people must be the principal consideration.

46. The Mandate for Palestine, having been approved by the Council of the League of Nations, holds a position as an authoritative constitutional document governing the status of Palestine. Article 27 of the Mandate provides that the consent of the League of Nations is required for any modification of its terms. If, however, it can be shown that that Mandate contains provision s which are inconsistent with Article XXII of the Covenant or the Balfour Declaration and contrary to the general interests of the people of Palestine, it would, I submit, be proper for His Majesty’s Government to lay before the League of Nations proposals for amending the Mandate with the object of removing from it those provisions.

47. The Balfour Declaration lays down two principles, viz.:

(1) That the Powers favor the establishment in Palestine of national home for the Jewish people.

(2) That nothing should be done in promoting the establishment of that national home which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

In the Balfour Declaration there is no suggestion that the Jews should be accorded a special or favored position in Palestine as compared with the Arab inhabitants of the country, or that the claims of Palestinians to enjoy self-government (subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory as foreshadowed in Article XXII of the Covenant) should be curtailed in order to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people.

48. The undertaking given in the Balfour Declaration to favor the establishment of a national home for Jews in Palestine would therefore be given effect to by according to the Jews opportunities of entering Palestine and settling there up to the economic capacity of the country to absorb new arrivals.

49. When the Mandate for Palestine was drawn up, however, several of its provisions were so drafted as in appearance to confer special privileges upon the Jews, so that the first part of the Balfour Declaration regarding the establishment of the Jewish National Home has tended to become the primary and overriding consideration of the Mandatory Power while the second part — the safeguarding of the civil and religious rights of the other inhabitants of Palestine — appears to have been relegated to a second place.

If the interests of the population of Palestine as a whole are to prevail, the Mandate should not lay special emphasis on measures concerned with the establishment of the Jewish National Home, and it should not contain provisions which have the appearance of granting preferential treatment to the Jews over the Arabs.

50. As stated above, it does not appear that the Balfour Declaration taken by itself is inconsistent with Article XXII of the Covenant. And it may reasonably be maintained that there is no inherent inconsistency between the policy of favoring the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine and the granting of a measure of self-government to the inhabitants of Palestine in accordance with the promises made to the Arab peoples as a whole by Great Britain and the Allied Powers, and as provided in Article XXII of the Covenant.

But by certain provisions of the Mandate the position has been fundamentally changed.

51. The first sentence of Article 2 of the Mandate lays down that “the Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble and the development of self-governing institutions.”

Owing to the rejection by the Arabs of the offers made to them of a share in the Government of the country, the effect of that provision has been to place the Jews in a favored position, for the fact that complete control over the administration has during the last nine years remained in the hands of the High Commissioner has enabled the Jews to make more rapid progress with the movement for the establishment of the national home than they would have been able to achieve under any form of representative Government.

In spite of their constant criticism of the Palestine Government, the Zionist Organization are well aware of the advantages the Jews enjoy under existing conditions, and the Zionist leaders have not concealed and do not conceal their opposition to the grant of any measure of self-government to the people of Palestine either now or for many years to come. Some of them even go so far as to claim that that provision of Article 2 of the Mandate constitutes a bar to compliance with the demand of the Arabs for any measure of self-government.

52. Article 4 of the Mandate provides for the establishment of a Jewish Agency as a public body for the purpose of advising and cooperating with the administration of Palestine on such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine.

The privileged position so accorded to the Jewish Agency is embarrassing to the Government of Palestine, since it excites the suspicion and resentment of the Arabs. In actual practice the special privileges accorded to the Jewish Agency, as represented by the Palestine Zionist Executive in Palestine, are not of great value or importance. The Palestine Zionist Executive enjoy the right of access to the Government with a view to advising and cooperating in Jewish affairs, and that right cannot be withdrawn; but similar privileges are accorded to representatives of responsible Arab bodies who may seek them, although the Mandate is silent on the subject.

It is stated in the White Paper (Cd. 1700) that the Palestine Zionist Executive does not possess any share in the general administration of the country, nor in practice does it do so; but owing to the privileged position assigned to the Jewish Agency under the Mandate, the Palestine Zionist Executive are inclined to claim that representations which they may make to the Government should receive special consideration and to feel aggrieved when their requests are not granted. I accordingly submit that Article 4 of the Mandate should be cancelled.

53. The first part of Article 6 of the Mandate provides that Jewish immigration shall be facilitated, subject to the conditions that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced. That provision is not unfair; but the provision in the concluding sentence for the close settlement of Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes, is regarded by the Arabs as unjust and as placing the Jews in a privileged position over the other inhabitants of Palestine.

Owing to improved hygienic conditions, the annual natural increase of the Arab population in now considerable. It amounts to from 15,000 to 20,000 per annum, and the rate of increase is growing. In certain districts the Arab population is in consequence already becoming congested; and the Arabs claim that the satisfaction of the needs of the Arab inhabitants of the country for land to live upon should have priority over the claims of the inhabitants of other countries who may desire to immigrate into Palestine.

This claim is just; and the grant to Jews of prior claims to State lands does not expressly or implicitly form part of the Balfour Declaration. It is therefore for consideration whether the concluding sentence of Article 6 of the Mandate should not be omitted.

I revert to the land question in paragraph 65 of this Dispatch.

54. Another provision of the Mandate which the Arabs regard as unjust to them is the second part of Article 11, which provides that the administration may arrange with the Jewish Agency for the construction and operation of public works services and utilities and for the development of the natural resources of the country, in so far as these matters are not directly undertaken by the administration. There is no good reason why provision should be made to give the Jewish Agency special privileges over other private bodies in the grant of concessions for such enterprises; and it would be well if the second paragraph of Article 11 of the Mandate could be omitted.

55. I understand that His Majesty’s Government have given an undertaking that the Report of the Commission of Inquiry will be laid before the Mandates Commission. I suggest that that occasion would afford a convenient opportunity for submitting to the Council of the League of Nations proposals for amending the Mandate in the sense suggested above.

56. I now turn to the consideration of the question of what measure of self-government would satisfy the demands of the Arab population, and whether such demands can be granted consistently with the discharge of the obligations assumed by His Majesty’s Government under the Mandate. The most recent statement in regard to British policy in Palestine is that made by His Majesty’s Government in 1922 (Command Paper No. 1700 of 1922, No. 5). The main features of the policy stated in that Paper were summarized in a telegram dated the 29th June, 1922, addressed to the Officer Administering the Government of Palestine by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in the following terms:

(1) His Majesty’s Government reaffirm the Declaration of November 1917, which is not susceptible of change.

(2) A Jewish National Home will be founded in Palestine. The Jewish People will be in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance. But His Majesty’s Government have no such aim in view as that Palestine should become as Jewish as England is English.

 (3) Nor do His Majesty’s Government contemplate disappearance or subordination of Arab population, language or culture.

(4) The Status of all citizens of Palestine will be Palestinian. No section of population will have any other status in the eyes of the law.

(5) His Majesty’s Government intend to foster the establishment of full measure of self-government in Palestine, and as the net step a Legislative Council with a majority of elected members will be set up immediately.

(6) Special position of Zionist Executive does not entitle it to share in any degree in government of country.

(7) Immigration will not exceed the economic capacity of country at the time to absorb new arrivals.

(8) A Committee of elected members of Legislative Council will confer with the administration upon matters relating to the regulation of immigration. Any difference of opinion will be referred to His Majesty’s Government.

(9) Any religious community or considerable section of the population claiming that the terms of the Mandate are not being fulfilled will have right of appeal to the League of Nations.

The Executive of the Zionist Organization formally assured His Majesty’s Government that the activities of the Zionist Organization would be conducted in conformity with the policy as stated in the White Paper. But, in spite of that assurance, many Zionists do not conceal the fact that their policy is not only to create a Jewish National Home in Palestine, but also to convert Palestine into a Jewish National State. By the Arabs that statement of policy was never accepted. During the last seven years the policy of the Government of Palestine has been guided by the principles laid down in that White Paper, and it has been taken as a basis for the proposals which I submit in this dispatch.

57. I have discussed the situation confidentially with the Arab leaders who have recently sought interviews with me.

I have impressed upon them that it was vain to ask His Majesty’s Government to abandon the policy of the Balfour Declaration. Not only had several of His Majesty’s Ministers recently made public statements to the effect that they intended to adhere to that policy, but those statements had been reinforced by similar announcements made during the last session of the Council of the League of Nations at Geneva.

Declaration of policy so formally and so unanimously made could not be rescinded.

The Manner in which the policy of the Balfour Declaration was given effect to was, however, another matter which might be open to discussion and argument.

58. I have pointed out to the Arab leaders the extreme folly of their action in refusing to cooperate with the Government in the working of the elected Legislative Council which was offered to them under the Order in Council of the 10th August, 1922, and the unfortunate consequences to themselves of their refusal to accept the policy of His Majesty’s Government stated in the White Paper of 1922. The consequence of those refusals has been not to bring the Arabs any nearer the fulfillment of their aspirations, but to leave them in a state of isolation and impotence in that during the last seven years they have had little opportunity for pressing their views in regard to draft legislation on the Government or of influencing the decisions and acts of the Government in matters affecting the special interests of the Arab population. I urged them not to repeat that folly at the present time, and to remember that, if, as was probable, His Majesty’s Government should not be able now to grant them so complete a measure of self-government as they hoped ultimately to attain, their successful conduct of affairs under such representative institution as His Majesty’s Government felt justified in granting them would furnish the strongest argument in favor of an advance in the future stage along the road towards the fulfillment of their aspirations. The justice of that argument was acknowledged, and the leaders admitted that they had acted foolishly in refusing to cooperate with the Government. They explained that the Arab politicians were divided into two parties, the policy of one of which was “all or nothing,” while the policy of the other was “take what you can get and ask for more.” The former party had up to now been in a majority.

59. In setting up representative institutions in Palestine, two considerations should, I suggest, be borne in mind. These are:

(1) That the time has not yet come for establishing any system of democratic parliamentary government in Palestine; and

(2) That the Legislative Council should include official and elected members, and that provision should be made to enable the elected members to have some share in the responsibility for the executive and administrative acts of the Government as well as for legislation.

60. As regards (1), it was pointed out by the Permanent Mandates Commission in September 1928, in reply to a petition from the Arab Congress, that the institution of any system of democratic parliamentary Government is not compatible with the obligations devolving on the Mandatory Power under the Mandate. And it is clear that considerable powers must be reserved to the High Commissioner as representative of the Mandatory Power, in order to enable His Majesty’s Government to discharge their obligations under the Mandate without hindrance by the local legislature.

61. As regards (2), I do not propose in this dispatch to submit proposals for a constitution for Palestine, but I would observe that, owing to the recent rise of Arab nationalism, it is highly improbable that the grant of a nominated Legislative Council with an unofficial majority, as suggested in my Secret Dispatch of the 12th June, 1929, would satisfy the Arab population, even if their leaders could be induced to accept it.

The partially elected Legislative Council, which was provided for under the Palestine Legislative Council Election Order-in-Council of the 10th August, 1922, might, however be taken as a basis for discussion in framing a new constitution for Palestine.

62. In paragraph 59 above I have expressed the opinion that it is highly desirable that provision should be made for the elected members to have some share in the responsibility for the administrative acts of the Government. The introduction of this provision is of importance in order that the elected members may not be tempted to waste their energies on the sterile task of pouring a stream of carping criticisms on every act of the Government.

63. It is possible that the new Constitution which has recently been offered to the people of Ceylon, and the method devised therein for enabling the elected members of the Assembly to take a share in the executive work of Government by means of committees associated with each department of the administration, may afford a helpful guide to the framers of a constitution for Palestine. Apart from their value as an instrument of government, such Committees would be beneficial in this respect, that they would serve to promote the establishment of closer personal relations between the Arab and Jewish members of the Legislative Council.

In order to prevent the possibility of a deadlock, it will be necessary to provide that the High Commissioner in Council shall be empowered to pass necessary measures when the Legislative Council is not in session, and that His Majesty in Council or the High Commissioner in Council should be empowered to pass essential legislation, such as the Appropriation Bill, if the Legislative Council fails to pass it. It would also be desirable to make use of the provisions of the second part of Section IV of the Royal Instructions, to summon more or less regularly extraordinary members of the Executive Council. These Extraordinary members might be invited to attend to deal with all matters that come before the Executive Council except reserved subjects, such as defense, public security and foreign relations.

64. I have already expressed the opinion that a necessary preliminary to the reestablishment of good relations between the Arabs and the Jews is a final settlement of the Wailing Wall dispute. It is an issue which introduces the religious element, and so long as it remains unsettled, there will always be ready to the hand of the ill-disposed a formidable weapon, to which recourse will be head in times of racial tension.

It only requires the dissemination of false reports of encroachments by the Jews at the Wall, or of concessions granted to them by Government in that locality, to rouse the ignorant section of the Moslem population to a state of frenzy, in which they become hardly responsible for their actions. I am aware that the question of the appointment of a special Commission under Article 15 of the Mandate is now before the Council of the League of Nations, and I desire to reaffirm the view which I have already expressed that, in the interests of peace and good order in Palestine, the need for the appointment of an authoritative body to study, define and determine the rights and claims of the Moslems and Jews relating to the Wailing Wall is urgent.

65. I now turn to the question of the acquisition of agricultural land by Jews from Arab owners, and its effect on the existing Arab agricultural population.

66. In order to understand this question, it is necessary to refer to the land legislation, beginning with the Land Transfer Ordinance, 1920.

Section 6 of that Ordinance contained a provision designed to secure two objects, namely:

(a) The prevention of speculation in land, and

(b) the retention, on the occasion of a sale of agricultural land, by the tenants in occupation of sufficient land in the district or elsewhere for the maintenance of themselves and their families.

67. At the third meeting of the Advisory Council, held on the 7th December, 1920, one of the unofficial members asked what measures were being taken to safeguard the rights of cultivators, as he understood that, in several villages, cultivators had been expelled from their holdings. In reply to the inquiry, the High Commissioner called attention to that part of Section 6 of the Land Transfer Ordinance, 1920, which provided that the Government should withhold its consent to the transfer, unless it was satisfied that, in the case of agricultural land, either the person transferring the property, if he were in possession, or the tenant in occupation, if the property were leased, would retain sufficient land in the district or elsewhere for the maintenance of himself and his family.

The High Commissioner also quoted the following extract from the instructions to the Land Commission, with the object of showing the precautions taken by Government to prevent expulsion of cultivators:

“The Government of Palestine, while desirous to promote in every possible way the closer settlement of the country, is at the same time anxious that the interests of the present tenants and occupants of land, whether Government property or private property, should be properly protected. It will be necessary, on the one hand, to take steps to prevent the eviction of tenants by the landlords on a sale of land, and, on the other, to secure for those who have exercised customary rights of cultivation and grazing, without full legal title, a sufficient area for the maintenance of their families.”

68. The instructions referred to in the preceding paragraph purported to make a distinction between “tenants” and “persons exercising customary rights of cultivation and grazing without full legal title.”

The former class of persons would presumably comprise persons who were in occupation of land as lessees and were, therefore, undoubtedly liable to eviction; in the instructions contemplated that such persons should be afforded protection only on the occasion of a sale, and, although the instructions stated that, on the occasion of a sale, the eviction of such persons was to be prevented, it is apparent, from Section 5 of the Land Transfer Ordinance, 1920, that what was meant was that, if evicted, they were to be provided with land in the district or elsewhere. The law could, however, always be evaded by a landlord evicting his tenants before applying for the consent of Government to the sale.

With regard to the latter class of persons, namely “persons exercising customary rights of cultivation and grazing without full legal title,” the instructions contemplated that such persons should, at all times, be secured in the occupation of sufficient land for the maintenance of themselves and their families. Section 5 of the Land Transfer Ordinance, 1920, could, however, only protect such persons on the occasion of sale, and would protect them then only if the law were strictly enforced and if the phrase “tenant in occupation” were construed to include “persons exercising customary rights” and if the phrase “property which is leased” were construed to include the land which they occupied.

69. In practice, however, Section 6 of the Land Transfer Ordinance, 1920 (amendment Ordinance (No. 2), 1921), did not, save possibly in one individual case, secure, either for “tenants in occupation” or for persons “exercising customary rights,” sufficient land for the maintenance of their families, since the Government allowed such persons to contract out of the law and to accept monetary compensation in lieu of their statutory right to land.

70. Section 6 of the Land Transfer Ordinance, 1920 (as amended by the Land Transfer (Amendment) Ordinance (No. 2), 1921), was repealed by the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance, 1929, which was promulgated on the 1st August, 1929.

That Ordinance was passed as a result of the acceptance by the Government of Lord Plumer to consider the question of legislation for the protection of tenants from eviction. That Report was forwarded to your predecessor under cover of Lord Plumer’s dispatch No. 1022 of the 6th July, 1927.

One of the recommendations made in that Report was the section of the Land Transfer Ordinance referred to should be repealed; and among the reasons given by the Committee for that recommendation were:

(a) that the law could be evaded by the purchaser refusing to purchase the land, except with vacant possession, and so compelling the vendor to remove all tenants from the land before the sale took place;

(b) that to require a landlord, who wished to sell a block of his property, to procure land in a different area for tenants whom he proposed to evict was an extraordinary impediment on the landlord’s right to dispose of his land and was calculated to prove a great obstacle to the close settlement of land; and

(c) that tenants who are removed from one area can usually find for themselves other land to cultivate in a different area without great difficulty, and that they are better able than their former landlord to obtain the land they want, and that the payment of money is therefore likely to be of greater assistance than the provision of a piece of land.

With regard to (a), there was foundation for the recommendation, since there were four cases during the period 1924-1927 in which the purchaser made it a condition that the land should be delivered to him with vacant possession.

With regard to (c), the succeeding paragraphs of this dispatch show that it is incorrect to state, in general terms, that persons evicted can obtain land elsewhere, if by that is meant cultivable land in Palestine, since this statement involves an unfounded assumption that there is a surplus of agricultural land in Palestine. Furthermore, under the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance, 1929, a tenant receives only compensation for disturbance and improvements, which is insufficient to enable him to purchase land elsewhere. Consequently, even when he can obtain land elsewhere, he can only afford to hold it as a tenant, liable to eviction, unless he possesses or commands, apart from the compensation he has received, sufficient funds to enable him to purchase.

71. The present position is, therefore, that the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance, 1929, affords the only statutory protection to cultivators; and the protection is of the same character as that provided by the Agricultural Holdings Acts in the United Kingdom.

If, therefore, a landowner wishes to sell, with vacant possession, he must first give his tenants one year’s notice as prescribed by the Ordinance ; and tenants, who are widely defined by Section 2 of the Ordinance, are entitled to compensation for disturbance and improvements but have no statutory right to land elsewhere sufficient for the maintenance of themselves and their families.

72. During the last ten years the purchase of agricultural land by Jews from Arab owners has proceeded on a considerable scale. The times at which these lands were acquired deserve a short examination:

(a) In the years 1921 and 1924-25 the Jews acquired 236,000 dunams almost exclusively from individual absentee landlords.

(b) Since 1921 the Jews have been gradually acquiring undivided shares in village lands, the vendors being either effendis and fellaheen or solely fellaheen. The area so acquired would, on partition, amount to 116,000 dunams.

(c) In the year 1920 the Jews acquired the Wadi Hawareth lands in the circumstances set out in paragraph 80 of this dispatch. This was the first large acquisition since 1925.

As regards (b), the fellaheen vendors were in many cases indebted to moneylenders for money borrowed at usurious rates of interest. When pressed by their creditors they sold their share in the village lands, frequently at high prices, in order that they might be able to discharge their liabilities. Until partition takes place the Arab cultivators are usually allowed to remain on the land as tenants. In some of the cases, where shares of village land have been acquired by Jews, partition has already taken place, as a result of which the Arab cultivators either have been compensated and evicted, or have moved on to the area remaining in Arab ownership.

In all cases the policy of the Jewish purchaser is to obtain a partition as soon as he is in a position to do so, and, so long as the law remains as at present, it is only a matter of time for the whole of the Arab inhabitants of such villages to be dispossessed of their land.

73. Since 1920 the Jews have acquired approximately 373,000 standard dunams of agricultural land. (A standard dunam is equal to 1,000 square meters, or 0.247 of an acre.) And they now own about 900,000 dunams, the greater part of which is land of the best quality. The Jewish population now engaged in agriculture numbers about 35,000 persons. The average holding per Jewish family is, at present, 130 dunams; but the Joint Palestine Survey Commission, which visited Palestine in 1927, advised that the area was insufficient and must be increased to 160-320 dunams. It is to be observed that all land acquired by the Jewish National Fund is held as the inalienable property of the Jewish nation, to be leased, but not sold, to those who occupy it.

74. The experts, who reported to the Joint Palestine Survey Commission, pointed out that all the Jewish colonies in the hills are financial failures. They advised that, for the present, no more Jewish colonies should be founded in the hills, but that colonization should be limited to the valleys and the plains, and they recommended that no expenditure for founding new colonies should be made until the development of existing colonies has been completed, or the money needed for their full development has been provided.

In particular, they laid stress on the importance of the coastal plain from Haifa to Gaza as a citrus producing area, and during recent years the marked tendency of Jewish effort in rural areas has been to develop this form of horticulture. It is an enterprise which involves considerable capital expenditure. The preparation of land for citrus cultivation alone cost £50-75 a dunam, and seven years must elapse before a grove produces an economic return. No one among the Arabs, except a few owners of large estates, possesses or commands sufficient capital to embark on the enterprise of transforming their land into citrus-producing land.

75. The situation as regards agricultural land in Palestine is, briefly, as follows:

The total area of Palestine is about 26,000,000 dunams. It is estimated that, of that area, 11,000,000 dunams are cultivable (excluding the Beersheba district, which is occupied by Bedouin).

Of the cultivable land, 10,100,000 dunams (or 12,100,000 dunams including the Beersheba district) is in the occupation of Arabs and other non-Jews.

The area of cultivable land now in Jewish ownership is 900,000 dunams.

According to the Land Registers, since 1920 up to the present time, the Jews have acquired 373,000 dunams of rural land; while the area of rural land in Arab ownership has decreased by 357,000 dunams, although the number of the indigenous population, apart from Jews, has, during that period, increased by 78,000 — the rate of natural increase being about 23 per thousand per annum.

76. It is estimated that, excluding the population of the Beersheba district, which numbers about 104,000, the Arab rural population of Palestine is 460,000.

Assuming an average of five persons per family, there are approximately 92,000 Arab families engaged in agriculture. The cultivable land in occupation of the indigenous population is 10,100,000 dunams; an average holding of 110 dunams is thus available for each Arab family. It is estimated that the area of land required to support the average Arab family is from 90 to 150 dunams, according to the quality of the land.

It would appear, therefore, that the agricultural land in the occupation of the indigenous population cannot, under existing conditions and methods of cultivation, support a greater population than that now occupying it, unless and until agricultural education and capital expenditure have borne fruit. A change from extensive to intensive methods of cultivation must take a considerable time, so far as education is concerned, and can be effected only if a large amount of capital, which is not now available, is made available and is wisely expended.

77. The position in regard to cultivable land may, therefore, be summarized in the following terms:

(a) All cultivable State domain is occupied.

(b) Government owns waste land, such as the coastal sand dunes, the desert area south-east of Beersheba and the mountainous region between the Jerusalem-Hebron road and the Dead Sea. These areas are not cultivable.

(c) Government owns large areas of land in the hilly parts of the country, which are fit only for afforestation.

(d) The cultivable land in the occupation of the indigenous population is fully occupied and cannot support a larger population under existing methods of cultivation.

(e) Any change from extensive to intensive methods of cultivation must take time and money and is likely to proceed at a more rapid rate than that required to permit of the absorption on the land of the annual natural increase of the Arab population.

(f) If more land now in the occupation of the indigenous population is sold for the purpose of Jewish settlement, either the existing cultivators will be dispossessed of the land and will cease to be cultivators, or their holdings must be reduced below what is now regarded as the average area sufficient to support an Arab agricultural family.

78. The land policy of the Zionist Organization is indicated by the following resolutions passed at the 16th Zionist Congress, held at Zurich in July and August 1929:

“7. The most important task of the Jewish National Fund in the immediate future is the creation of land reserves in all parts of the country; in particular, the Congress is of opinion that it is necessary to create, as soon as possible, a land reserve of irrigable lands in accordance with a definite plan for colonization policy. 8. The Congress accordingly recommends that a systematic plan for the acquisition of land be worked out at once by the proper authorities.”

As regards colonization, the Congress declared:

“that it is to be the basic policy of the Jewish Agency for all time to do everything to assure development and extension of Jewish agricultural colonization in Palestine in accordance with the principles laid down by the Congress for cooperation in the Jewish Agency on as large a scale as possible.”

79. Having regard to these resolutions and this declaration of policy, and to the facts set out in the preceding paragraphs, it is clear that a situation has now arisen in which the interests of the indigenous population and the interests of the Jews as regards agricultural land are in direct conflict; for further purchases of agricultural land by the Jews can be made only by dispossessing Arab cultivators of the land they are occupying and so creating a class of landless peasantry.

80. Already a difficult situation has arisen in the case of the Wadi Hawareth lands. These lands were recently purchased by the Jewish National Fund at a public auction ordered by the Court in satisfaction of a judgment debt. The lands have long been occupied for cultivation and grazing by Arabs, who number about 1,200 persons and own 2,000-3,000 head of stock. An order for their eviction was recently made; but I have caused the Police to be instructed not to execute the order at present, since no land has, as yet, been found to which the persons to be evicted and their stock can be transferred, and I cannot, in any circumstances, allow them and their stock to be placed upon the public roads and there set at liberty to wander where they will.

81. I am also informed that, during the last few weeks, two contracts have been signed, and a third contract is in the process of negotiation, for the purchase of three areas of land, amounting to 30,000 dunams, which are all occupied by Arab cultivators.

82. In considering the problem thus created, it is necessary to bear in mind:

(a) the second half of the Balfour Declaration, which provides that nothing shall be done in establishing a national home for the Jewish people which may prejudice the civil rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine;

(b) Article 6 of the Mandate, which, while imposing on the Administration the obligation of encouraging close settlement by Jews on the land, provides that the rights and position of other sections of the population shall not be prejudiced; and

(c) Article 11 of the Mandate, which provides (among other things) that the Administration shall introduce a land system appropriate to the needs of the country.

These provisions make it impossible for the Government to adopt the attitude that the indigenous population itself can solve the problem by not selling its land, and I am of opinion that, by reason of these provisions, the Government are under a positive obligation to protect the interests of the indigenous population.

83. With regard to the solution of the problem, two measures appear to be necessary:

(i) That immigration of Jewish agricultural colonists must be restricted.

(ii) That legislative measures must be taken to ensure that the indigenous agricultural population is not dispossessed of its land.

84. To the legislative measures referred to in the preceding paragraph, they need only relate to the indigenous agricultural population, which is not Jewish, since the Jews are protected by their own organizations and, to a large extent, by the rules of the Jewish National Fund, which provide that all land acquired by the Fund shall be held as the inalienable property of the Jewish nation to be leased, but not to be sold, to those who occupy it.

For the reasons given in paragraph 70 (a) legislation based on the principle embodied in the Land Transfer Ordinances (1920-1921) would be ineffective, since such legislation can be and has been evaded. I am therefore of the opinion that the only effective legislative measure which can be taken is to provide that the transfer of Arab agricultural land, except between Arabs, and the creation of rights over such land, except in favor of Arabs, should for the present be allowed only with the consent of the High Commissioner. Such a measure may appear to be unduly drastic, but the principle is the same, mutatis mutandis, as is contained in Article 6 of the Mandate for Tanganyika, and it will do no more than afford to the Arab peasants a measure of protection similar to that now enjoyed by the Jews in respect of the land owned by the Jewish National Fund.

I propose, therefore, to submit to Your Lordship a Bill to give effect to that principle.

85. It is possible that such an Ordinance may be challenged in the Courts on the ground that it is in conflict with the terms of the Mandate. Although I am advised that such an argument is not likely to succeed, I think it is desirable that the Mandate should be so amended as to sanction the principle of the Bill. The necessities of the moment are, however, so urgent that I do not propose to await the amendment of the Mandate before submitting the proposed draft Ordinance.

86. In Command Paper 1700 of 1922, His Majesty’s Government gave the Arabs an assurance that immigration would not exceed the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb newcomers. During the years 1924-26 that undertaking was, as subsequent events proved, too liberally interpreted. Mass immigration of Jews was permitted, which resulted in severe economic depression and unemployment on a large scale. Immigration was consequently temporarily suspended and was resumed only in the latter half of the year 1928.

87. The information given in the preceding paragraphs in regard to the land makes it clear that the demands of the Jews for immigration on a large scale for the development of new colonies cannot be complied with without infringing that part of the Balfour Declaration which limits the pursuit of the policy of the Jewish National Home by the stipulation that nothing shall be done to prejudice the rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. As explained above, the conclusion seems inevitable that unless and until more intensive methods of cultivation are generally adopted in Palestine, no further land can be made available for settlement of Jews and that, for the present, the immigration of Jewish agricultural colonists must be restricted to the number required to develop and cultivate the land now in Jewish ownership.

88. In regard to immigration of Jews of the working classes for employment in industries or on manual labor other than agriculture, there is great difficulty in determining with any degree of accuracy the economic capacity of the country to absorb settlers.

It is comparatively easy to ascertain approximately the number of newcomers who can be absorbed in industries of a more or less permanent character. Difficulties arise, however, in considering the capacity of absorption of industries which fluctuate.

The building trade, for instance, during the years 1924-26 was active, and many Jews were permitted to enter the country because there was urgent demand for the class of artisan required by that industry. After a time, however, the supply of buildings began to exceed the demand; building construction slackened, and a large number of men were thrown out of employment. Some of these men were absorbed into other industries; but many, after a painful experience of poverty and suffering, left the country.

89. In order to avoid a repetition of these experiences, it is necessary to exercise caution in determining periodically the number of immigration permits to be issued.

The existing inhabitants of the country must be assured that their rights shall not be prejudiced by excessive immigration; and at the same time, the Jewish people in Palestine and elsewhere must be satisfied that the rights of Jew to enter Palestine, subject to the economic capacity of the country to absorb them, are being maintained.

90. The interest of Arabs and Jews in regard to Jewish immigration are so conflicting that it would be inexpedient to place the final decision in regard to the number of immigration certificates to be issued at any time within the powers of a legislature, composed mainly of representatives of the people of Palestine. Under Article 34 of the Palestine Order-in-Council of August 1922, it was provided that the High Commissioner should confer upon all matters relating to the regulation of immigration with a Committee consisting of one-half of the official members of the Legislative Council, and that provision should be made by Order-in-Council for investing that Committee with the necessary powers.

It was also provided that in the event of any difference of opinion between the High Commissioner and the Committee, the High Commissioner should make a full report on the subject to a Secretary of State, whose decision thereon would be final. In the absence of a Legislative Council the matter has, up to now, been left in the hands of the High Commissioner.

91. The consideration of immigration questions by a committee is highly desirable, because that procedure permits of an open discussion of the question and of all the economic factors affecting a decision. That the recommendations of the Committee should be followed by a decision by the High Commissioner, with the right of appeal to the Secretary of State, if one or other of the two parties should feel aggrieved at the decision is in the circumstances necessary. The Arabs are, however, unlikely to welcome such an arrangement, for they regard the immigration of Jews into Palestine as of right as constituting a grave menace to their interests, while the Jews will equally resent the adoption of a procedure which may have the effect of imposing increased restrictions upon Jewish immigration.

92. In connection with the question of the organization of the public security forces, I enclose a Memorandum setting forth the decisions that have been taken by His Majesty’s Government since 1925 in regard to the establishments of the public security forces in Palestine and Transjordan, and describing the defense arrangements generally (Enclosure II).

93. At the beginning of August 1929, the distribution of the air and military forces in Palestine and Transjordan was as follows:

(a) Amman — Command H.Q., Palestine and Transjordan; H.Q. and 2 Sections, No. 2 Armored Car Company; No. 14 (Bomber) Squadron.

(b) Ma’an — 1 Section, No. 2 Armored Car Company; 1 Company (Mounted), Trans-Jordan Frontier Force.

(c) Kerka — H.Q. and Training Depot, Trans-Jordan Frontier Force; 2 Mounted Companies, Trans-Jordan Frontier Force; 1 Camel Company, Trans-Jordan Frontier Force.

(d) Ramleh — Base Details of No. 2 Armored Car Company.

(e) Sarafand — Palestine General Hospital; No. 1 Wireless Company, Royal Corps of Signals.

The total personnel of the Royal Air Force and Armored Car Company in Palestine and Trans-Jordan numbered 29 officers and 354 other ranks.

The establishment of the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force included 23 British officers and Warrant Officers and 653 local officers and 64 other ranks. Of the latter, only 12 men could immediately be made available for combatant duty.

The Palestine Police consisted of the British Section, with an establishment of 5 British officers and 170 other ranks, and the Palestinian Section, with an establishment of 42 British officers, 73 Palestinian officers and 1,261 Palestinian other ranks.

The Arab Legion (Transjordan Police) consisted of a British officer, 33 local officers and 786 other ranks.

94. Apart from locally recruited forces and the personnel of the Air Force and Armored Car Sections, who are confined to their technical duties, there were thus available to deal with outbreaks in the towns and populous centers on the 23rd August, 1929, only 47 British officers and warrant officers and 182 British other ranks.

95. Recent events have shown that the optimistic views held as to the improvement of the relations between the Arabs and the Jews were ill-founded, and that the public security forces maintained in Palestine were insufficient to prevent or suppress outbreaks of violence in time of tension between the two sections of the population. It also became apparent that the Palestine members of the Police Force cannot be relied upon to do their duty in situations in which they are called upon to act against members of their own race and religion.

There is the further consideration that the recent manifestations of the latent hatred felt by the Arabs for the Zionist Jews have been followed by a wave of Arab nationalist sentiment which has spread over Palestine and the neighboring Arab countries and has engendered among the Arab a feeling of distrust of the Mandatory Power. Any recrudescence of the outbreaks in Palestine is therefore likely to be supported by incursions of Arabs from the neighboring countries.

96. In determining the future establishment and composition of the public security forces in Palestine, these considerations must be taken into account, and it must be remembered that even if, as the result of the Report of the Commission of Inquiry, it should be decided to make substantial changes in the political status of Palestine in order to meet the demand of the Arabs for a share in the Government of the country, a considerable time must elapse before the acute tension that now exists between the Arab and Jewish sections of the population will be relaxed. In these circumstances, I am of opinion that the establishment of the public security forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan should be increased, and that these forces should include a substantial proportion of British personnel, on whom alone the Government can place implicit reliance in times of inter-racial disturbances.

97. In other dispatches I have submitted to Your Lordship proposals for the increase of the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force and for the reorganization of the Palestine Police, which include recommendations for an increase of the establishment of the British Section of the Force. On the assumption that the Police Force has been reorganized and that the proposed increase of the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force has been effected, I submit the following observations as regards the Imperial Forces required to support the police and other local forces in time of emergency.

The experiences of the recent outbreaks have made it clear that life and property in Palestine cannot be effectively protected by the local forces supported by the air arm alone, even in the case of internal disorders. Airplanes and armored cars are able effectively to deal with raids by Bedouin in the open and sparsely populated regions of Eastern Trans-Jordan. But they cannot adequately provide for the defense of Palestine. They are unable to undertake many of the military operations that are necessary for the defense and for the maintenance of order in a country such as Palestine, which contains large towns and populous districts — often enclosed and wooded — and of which large area consists of mountainous and broken country. They are unable to break up riotous assemblies in towns with narrow and tortuous streets inhabited by a mixed population or to protect agricultural colonies from attack by day or by night. They are unable to surround and search villages or to round up roving bands of marauders. They cannot effectively make reconnaissances in broken or wooded country. To carry out all these operations effectively there is no substitute for infantry, preferably made mobile by being provided with adequate motor transport.

Further, owing to the nature of the soil and the absence of properly constructed aerodromes, aircraft in Palestine are practically immobile during and after heavy rains. Finally, in Palestine punitive action from the air is, as a rule, to be deprecated by dictates of humanity and policy alike. For the indiscriminate destruction of life and property which are almost inseparable from air action under the conditions prevailing in Palestine make it desirable to avoid having recourse to such actions except as a last resort.

98. In this connection I would observe that the view expressed by Sir Herbert Samuel in pars. 1-4 of his Secret Dispatch of the 19th April, 1925, on the scheme for the defense of Palestine show so just an appreciation of the situation as it then was and are so applicable to the conditions of today that I venture here to quote them:

“1. The scheme for the defense of Palestine which has now been submitted has the great advantage that it draws a clear line between the military forces and the police, and gives to the Air Officer Commanding and to the Inspector General of Police full control of their several units. But I am bound to say that it involves considerable risks. The British Gendarmerie will disappear, 200 of its men being embodied in the Police. The cavalry regiment is to be removed in the year after next. The security of the country will then depend entirely upon two flights of airplanes, four armored cars and a battalion of 900 Palestinians.

“2. If we could be certain that the condition of the country would remain as it is now and as it has been during the last two years, such a force would, in my opinion, be sufficient. But we cannot be certain. We must envisage as a possibility a change in the political situation, which might result in a recurrence of the conditions of the spring of 1921. If at that date there had not been a considerable body of troops in the country, the serious riots which broke out in Jaffa and the districts would almost certainly have spread to other towns and other districts. If in the future there were simultaneous disturbances in several places, lasting (as in May 1921) for several days, and if the unrest here was accompanied (as in April 1920) by raids on a considerable scale from Trans-Jordan, I do not think that the forces proposed would be able to cope with the situation.

“3. There is also to be considered the psychological effect of the removal from the country of all white units of infantry, cavalry or gendarmerie. The more extreme elements among the Arabs might thereby be encouraged to insist upon a change in the present policy of opposition limited to constitutional lines, in which they now concur with reluctance. It would certainly make the Jewish population apprehensive, and might lead to a renewal of the secret importation of arms and the formation of secret defense forces, which occurred after the serious loss of life and property suffered through the Arab attacks in 1920 and 1921.

“4. It must be remembered that airplanes are not by themselves an effective weapon with which to meet conditions such as I have described in a small country like Palestine. Armored cars also, while of the greatest value in the open or in main streets, are, of course, of little use in places like the Old City of Jerusalem and the Arab quarters of Jaffa, the places where in fact the previous riots took place. Nor would a British cavalry regiment, even if retained, be the best kind of force for Palestine, although its presence would in itself have a certain moral effect.”

99. In addition to maintaining the present establishment of the Air Force and Armored Cars now in Palestine and Trans-Jordan, I consider that the permanent Garrison of Palestine should include not less than two battalions of British infantry with the necessary ancillary services.

100. When the permanent garrison has been so strengthened, I recommend that the defense of Palestine should cease to be a responsibility of the Air Ministry and should be transferred to the charge of the War Office. During the recent disturbances by far the greater part of the work of restoring order fell upon the military forces, and it is logical that the ultimate responsibility for the defense of the country should rest with the Department mainly concerned.

If responsibility for the defense of Palestine is transferred to the War Office, I recommend that, for defense purposes, Palestine should be made part of the Egyptian Military Command. That arrangement would be not only economically and administratively convenient, but it would also be strategically advantageous, for it would greatly facilitate the reinforcement of the troops in Palestine in time of need.

101. I am aware that objections have been raised to the stationing of battalions of British Infantry in Palestine on account of the expense; but in view of the international obligations undertaken by His Majesty’s Government under the Mandate and of the world-wide criticisms to which the Mandatory Power and the Government of Palestine have been exposed by the recent outbreaks, I regard it as essential that no avoidable risk should be incurred of a repetition of the disorders, and I submit that financial considerations should not be allowed to stand in the way of the discharge by the Mandatory Power of its primary duty of providing the Government of Palestine with sufficient force to enable it to insure the maintenance of order and the safety of life and property.

102. There is another consideration that cannot be altogether ignored in fixing the establishment of the public security forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan; that is the interest of the Mandatory for Syria. In spite of the sympathy and assistance that the French Authorities in Syria have extended to the Government of Palestine during the recent outbreaks, they have criticized adversely the arrangements made for the defense of this country. And I understand from information that has reached us that, if the British Forces in Palestine are reduced to such a point as in their opinion to endanger the peace of Syria, the French Government will probably make representations to His Majesty’s Government on the subject.

In this connection I may mention that when a battalion was withdrawn from Palestine at the end of October, the General Officer Commanding the Damascus District made protests on the subject to the British Liaison Officer in Syria. When I was informed of these protests, I authorized the British Liaison Officer, in accordance with the authority which you gave me in your telegram No. 237 of the 21st October, to assure the French Authorities that in case of need the garrison of Palestine would be reinforced at short notice by a battalion from Malta.

Summary of Conclusions.

103. The following are the main conclusions which I submit for consideration:

(1) That the Balfour Declaration should be reaffirmed, and that it should be given effect to in the spirit of the statement of British Policy contained in Command Paper 1700 of 1922. (Paragraphs 40-48.)

(2) That the Mandatory should submit to the League of Nations proposals for the amendment of Articles 2, 4, 6, and 11 of the Mandate with a view to removing from them those provisions which give or appear to give the Jew a privileged position in Palestine over the indigenous population. (Paragraphs 49-55.)

(3) That, subject to the reservations of such powers as may be necessary to enable His Majesty’s Government to discharge their obligations under the Mandate the people of Palestine should be granted a measure of representative government, which should provide that the representatives of the people shall have some share in the responsibility for the administrative and executive acts of the Government as well as for legislation. (Paragraphs 59-63.)

(4) That a special commission should be appointed under Article 14 of the Mandate to study, define and determine the rights and claims of the Jews and Moslems relating to the Wailing Wall. (Paragraph 64.)

(5) That all the cultivable land in Palestine is now occupied. (Paragraphs 72-77.)

(6) That no cultivable land now in possession of the indigenous population can be sold to Jews without creating a class of landless Arab cultivators. (Paragraphs 78-81.)

(7) That legislative measures should be taken (a) to ensure that the indigenous agricultural population shall not be dispossessed of its land, and (b) to prevent the creation of a class of landless peasantry. (Paragraphs 82-85.)

(8) That the immigration of Jewish agricultural colonists should be restricted to the number required to develop and cultivate the land now in Jewish ownership. (Paragraphs 86-87.)

(9) That the permanent garrison of Palestine should include two battalions of British Infantry with the necessary ancillary services. (Paragraph 99.)

(10) That responsibility for public security in Palestine should be transferred from the Air Ministry to the War Office. (Paragraph 100.)

(11) That for defense purposes Palestine should be made part of the Egyptian Military Command. (Paragraph 100.)

I have, &c.

(Signed) J.R. CHANCELLOR
High Commissioner for Palestine.

Enclosure I to Confidential Dispatch to Secretary of State, dated January 17, 1930.

Memorandum on the Wailing Wall

1. The Western or Wailing Wall, in Hebrew Kotel-Maaravi, and in Arabic El-Burak, is to the Jews the holiest place in their religion. It is believed to be the last remnant of the Temple remaining above the ground, and it is taught that from these stones the Spirit of God has never departed. The Jews claim that they have prayed before the Wall from time immemorial, and certainly there is a continuous tradition of Jewish worship at the Wall since the middle ages.

2. The Wailing Wall is also an exterior boundary wall of the Haram-el Sharif, one of the most sacred places of Islam, and, as such, it is the property of the Moslem Community. Tradition also states that here was the tethering place of “al-Buraq,” which bore the Prophet on his miraculous ascension.

3. There is a narrow pavement in front of the Wall (29.45 meters long by 4.20 meters broad), where Jewish worshippers stand to pray, and where on Sabbaths and on the principal holy-days (Passover, New Year, Day of Atonement and the Anniversary of the Destruction of the Temple) they congregate in large numbers. This pavement lies within the boundary of the Moslem Waqf of Abu Midian, a pious foundation. The beneficiaries of the foundation are Moroccans who have lived in this neighborhood since the fifteenth century.

4. Although the pavement in front of the Wall is contiguous to the wall of the Haram-el Sharif, and although it was the tethering spot of “al-Buraq,” there is no record of its having been held by the Moslems in any special veneration.

5. The legal position is the same now as it was before the War. It is understood by the Government to be as follows: the Wailing Wall and the pavement are the absolute property of the Moslems, who permit access to the Wall to the public generally; and, in addition, “the Jewish community have established an undoubted right of access to the pavement for the purpose of their devotions.”

6. Only on very rare occasions before the conquest of Palestine by the Allied Forces had there been any interference on the part of the Moslems with Jewish observances at the Wall, and in general the relations between the worshippers and their Moslem neighbors were cordial. Soon after the occupation, however, the Jewish authorities made certain d’emarches with the object of transforming a privilege on sufferance into a right founded on actual ownership of this area. To that end Dr. Weizmann made tentative inquiries of the Military Government in the spring of 1918 as to the possibility of purchasing the whole of the Waqf property near the Wall.

The Military Governor of Jerusalem (Sir Ronald Storrs) sounded the Moslem community informally and indirectly; but, following the agitation due to the fact that it became known that pecuniary offers were being made privately to certain Moslems with regard to the purchase of this area, he reported that “it would be for the moment a grave error of policy for the Military Government to raise the question at all.”

The Foreign Office, which was then the responsible Department, were communicated with and they instructed that for the time being no further action should be taken in the matter by the Government.

7. From that day to this it has not been possible for the Jews to acquire by agreement with the Moslems, any part of the land adjacent to the Wailing Wall. As the result, their rights and exercise of worship have been definitely limited by the legal fact of the ownership of the Wall and its precincts by Moslems.

8. In the absence of a settlement of the dispute by agreement between the parties, the Government have endeavored in view of Article 13 of the Mandate, which imposes upon the Mandatory responsibility for preserving existing rights in connection with the Holy Places, to preserve the status quo, as in other cases in dispute between different religious communities or sects.

9. But the preservation of the status quo has presented difficulties. It embraces not only the question of the ownership of the property but also the question of what appurtenances the Jews may bring to the Wall for the purposes of their devotions.

The view held by the Mandatory Government in this matter is set out in a memorandum by the Secretary of State, entitled “The Western or Wailing Wall in Jerusalem,” which describes certain incidents which occurred at the Wailing Wall on the Day of Atonement, 1928 (the 24th September). The most important point is contained in the following quotation:

“His Majesty’s Government regard it as their duty, and it is their intention, to maintain the established Jewish right of access to the pavement in front of the Wall for the purposes of their devotions, and also their right to bring to the Wall the appurtenances that they were allowed to take to the Wall under the Turkish regime. It would be inconsistent with their duty under the Mandate were they to endeavor to compel the Moslem owners of the pavement to accord any further privileges or rights to the Jewish community.”

10. On the Day of Atonement, 1928, there was an incident regarding the removal of a portable screen erected to separate the male and the female worshippers. This, however, was not the first occasion on which this question of the appurtenances arose.

Before the Occupation, indeed, in 1919, a Decree of the Administrative Council of Jerusalem had forbidden the bringing of chairs, benches, screens and the like. Similar incidents also occurred in April 1922 and on the Day of Atonement again in 1923. These two incidents related to the bringing of benches to the Wall.

It may seem a matter of reason and humanity that aged worshippers should be permitted to have seating accommodation, especially on the Day of Atonement, when they fast for twenty-four hours, but the other point of view is stated by Sir Ronald Storrs in a memorandum written in 1925:

“The Moslem objection to the introduction of benches (which I have consistently endeavored to overcome on grounds of reason and humanity) is based partly upon the fact that the pavement in front of the Wall is actually the only approach to one or more of the Moghrabi houses, and that it is in danger of being blocked if benches or anything of a permanent nature were allowed t obstruct the fairway; but still more upon the theory, unfortunately verified by universal experience in Jerusalem, that any concession or abrogation from existing rights tends to become the thin end of a wedge before which rights are apt to disintegrate. Chairs, they state, would become wooden benches, wooden benches stone benches, stone benches fixed stone benches, with the corollary that covering from above against sun and rain and from the side against cold is equally a matter of humanity; so that the Waqf would one day find houses belonging to others erected against their wishes upon their own property. I would add that such exaggerated suspicions have been for centuries at the root of most of the constantly recurring trouble between the various Christian rites at the Holy Sepulcher, where, after all, the conflict is between adherents of one faith and uncomplicated by the hopes and apprehensions aroused by the Balfour Declaration.”

In a word, the Moslems were, and are, afraid that the first steps were being taken for the conversion of the area into a Synagogue.

11. In transmitting this memorandum to the Secretary of State, Lord Plumer expressed his sympathy with the Jewish worshippers, but said that it would be extremely unwise to attempt to make any alteration in the regulations which now obtain except b mutual agreement, and that he proposed a little later on, when the excitement had somewhat subsided, to endeavor to come to some arrangement which might mitigate the discomfort of the worshippers without infringing the legal rights of the owners of the ground. The government admitted, however, that small portable campstools and cushions might be brought for the convenience of aged or infirm worshippers.

12. No other special incidents regarding the Wailing Wall occurred during Lord Plumer’s regime except that the Moslem authorities continued to submit protests regarding the placing of any form of seat on the pavement.

13. The length to which some Jews were prepared to go for the purpose of securing what they considered to be proper conditions for free and undisturbed worship at the Wailing Wall is illustrated by an article in the “Hahed” (Jerusalem) which appeared at the beginning of September 1928, i.e., before the Day of Atonement (the 24th September). The article, under the title of “On the Pilgrimage Celebrations,” praises the work of the Yeshurun Congregation in Jerusalem in reviving the old institution of pilgrimage on the three pilgrim festivals of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, and says, “with the increase in recent years of the Jewish population in Palestine and of the Jewish tourists who visit the Holy Land, the congestion at the Wailing Wall has become more serious, and especially during the festivals, when it becomes dangerous, and is becoming more dangerous every year. This year, on the Day of Pentecost the morning prayer was interrupted several times owing to the congestion. It reaches its climax during the pilgrimages, which have been renewed this year and which will develop even more in the future. Of the thousands of pilgrims who made the pilgrimage, a few hundred only managed to push their way into the enclosure before the Wailing Wall, while the rest, in serried masses, were forced to wait for many hours in the narrow lanes until they might come to the Wailing Wall itself for a few minutes. It is, no doubt, possible to improve matters by posting ushers, but a thorough solution can only be found by enlarging the enclosure adjacent to the Wall.”

14. The article then proceeds to say that the enlargement of the enclosure by the demolition of the dilapidated houses encumbering it would not be offensive to the religious feelings of any community; the Jew would pay the full price of the land and houses; if the Arab leaders had any sense of justice they would have raised no objections to this scheme; it is the duty of the Government to intervene and expedite a settlement; just as the Government expropriated land for work of a public nature, such as the construction and widening of roads, so ought they to do for the most Holy sanctuary of the Jewish people, which cannot be regarded as of less significance.

15. The article concludes by urging the Palestine Zionist Executive and the Chief Rabbinate and the Vaad Leumi (the General Council of the Jewish Community of Palestine) to take the initiative and enter into negotiations with the Palestine Government, the Mandatory Government and the League of Nations with a view to solving this problem. The Jewish National Fund should undertake the task of raising the necessary funds to redeem the enclosure and to enlarge it. “If Israel knows that this holy place is redeemable, the whole people will hasten to redeem it; and if success attends our efforts, it will serve as a sign of the beginning of the redemption of Israel.”

16. The importance of this article lies in the fact that it was published before the incident which occurred at the Wailing Wall in September 1928, and before the religious question was openly confounded with political and racial questions.

17. The Jews had tried to purchase the necessary land from the Moslems and had failed. The Jewish press seized upon the unfortunate incidents of the Day of Atonement to force the issue to the front. One section demanded that Government should discharge its responsibility by expropriating on behalf of the Jews the precincts of the Wailing Wall in order that Jews should worship there in future unhampered by any restrictions.

18. Many protests from Jewish bodies and individuals were received by the Government and the League of Nations. The following is a quotation from the Minutes of a meeting of the Permanent Mandates Commission held on the 8th November, 1928:

“Mr. Orts pointed out that telegrams and letters had been received from Jewish organizations all over the world. This seemed to indicate concerted action taken on a given word of command rather than a spontaneous outburst of indignation.

“The Chairman (the Marquis Theodoli) thought that if this were the case, the responsible body was the Zionist Organization. The protests received by the Commission from various parts of the world had been worded in similar terms, if not identically. This would lead one to suppose that the protest had been organized.”

19. The effect of this Jewish propaganda in Palestine and abroad and its repercussions amongst the Arabs was to obscure the purely religious aspect of the Wailing Wall and to rouse again the political and racial antagonism of Arabs and Jews which had been suppressed or at least masked for nearly six years, now, however, with a dangerous religious coloring.

About this time a society was formed among the Sheikhs of the Mosque entitled “The Society for the Protection of Al-Aqsa.”

20. The Moslems feared that the political influence of the Jews in London and at Geneva and elsewhere might lead to a decision to expropriate the land near the Wailing Wall. They suspected the Expropriation Ordinance of being an engine for the alienation of Moslem Waqf property in general and the Waqf property near the Wailing Wall in particular; the more ignorant and fanatical Moslems further believed stories that the Haram area and the Mosque of Al Aksa were in danger.

21. Shortly after the incident at the Wailing Wall on the Day of Atonement, 1928, the Palestine Zionist Executive represented to Government that the Supreme Moslem Council, in order to excite Moslem fanaticism were deliberately spreading rumors that the whole of the Haram area was in danger from Jewish encroachment. Government made enquiries, but could find no definite evidence to support the suggestion.

22. Public security became threatened by the spread of these exaggerated rumors amongst a fanatical population.

On the 10th October, 1928, the Officer Administering the Government suggested to the representatives of the Palestine Zionist Executive the issue of a communiqué by the Jewish authorities, making it clear that the Jews had no desire to acquire the site of the Haram.

The representative of the Palestine Zionist Executive replied that he must decline the suggestion of publishing such a communiqué. Whish would only provoke further discussions about a matter that was already beyond discussion.

23. A month later, however, the Executive of the Zionist Organization issued from London the following statement for publication in Palestine and abroad:

“In view of the fact that the Jewish aspirations to secure the conditions necessary for free and undisturbed worship at the Kotel-Maaravi, known as the Wailing Wall, have been misrepresented as involving designs to encroach upon the Haram area, the Zionist Organization desires to reaffirm its repeated declarations unreservedly recognizing the inviolability of the Moslem Holy Places.”

24. It may be noted that Government were made aware that the publication of a communiqué by the Jew disclaiming any aspirations towards the Haram itself might be embarrassing since such a statement would not be accepted by all Jews.

25. In the intervening month the feelings of Moslems in Palestine and the neighboring countries had been roused to a dangerous pitch. Any effect that the published statements of the Palestine Zionist Executive and the Vaad Leumi might possibly have had in allaying Moslem feeling was afterwards negatived when the petitions submitted to the League of Nations by those two bodies were published. Notwithstanding the fact that the two petitioners disavowed any intention to ask for appropriation, the two petitions are capable of that interpretation.

26. The preceding paragraphs give some idea of the state of popular feeling in Palestine from the Day of Atonement (the 24th September), 1928, until the terms of the White Paper (Cmd. 1229 of November 1928), which defined the attitude of His Majesty’s Government on the Wailing Wall became known. It was published in the Official Gazette of the Palestine Government on the 11th December. This Paper gave satisfaction to the Moslems who were immediately appeased: their confidence in the British Government in the matter of the Wailing Wall was restored; for the time being the danger to public security passed.

27. The Jews on the other hand were far from satisfied. They did not want the status quo, in that thereby the state of sufferance which had prevailed under the previous regime was perpetuated. Statements were openly made by responsible leaders that under the terms of the Mandate the status quo did not suffice. Such sentiments were expressed at the Zionist Congress held at Zurich in July of 1928. These claims of the Jews together with their other political demand were reproduced in the Arabic Press.

28. The White Paper had one fundamental difficulty which nevertheless in the nature of things could not have been avoided. The status quo was defined in general terms as being “that the Jewish community have a right of access to the pavement for the purposes of their devotions, but may bring to the Wall only those appurtenances of worship which were allowed under the Turkish regime.”

29. This very general definition gave rise to certain questions which had to be answered before complete practical effect could be given to the White Paper. The question was what was the meaning of “allowed”; whether it meant only such practices as were officially admitted by the Ottoman Government, or whether it meant in addition such practices as were tolerated by the guardian of the Waqf or tolerated by him in virtue of private arrangements made between him and the Jews.

The Moslem authorities have consistently maintained that the Jews merely have the same right of access to and station at the Wall as any other persons. They do not even admit that they have the right of access for the purposes of prayer, and consider, further, that the phrase “and the like” in the 1912 decision of the Administrative Council precluded any form of seating or appurtenances whatsoever.

The Jews, on their side, interpret the word “allowed” in the wider sense as being what was actually done under the Turkish regime. It is certain that the Ottoman Government from time to time expressly forbad the bringing of certain appurtenances, in particular benches and a screen, to the Wall. There is evidence, however, of a relaxation of these orders at different times, and conditions at the Wall appear to have depended largely on the state of relations between the Jews and their neighbors.

30. The Moslem authorities, interpreting the status quo in the narrowest sense, asked that the terms of the White Paper should be enforced, and became suspicious that the delay was due to Jewish pressure on the Home Government to modify its provisions. His Majesty’s Government, on the other hand, were unwilling that the status quo should be defined in writing until it became clear that there was no possibility of arriving at a settlement by agreement between the parties. The result was that the Jews continued to bring various appurtenances to the Wall and the Moslems planned structural alterations in the buildings in the neighborhood of the Wall, whilst each party complained to the Government of the infringement of the status quo by the other. In consequence there was a state of tension at the Wailing Wall all through the spring and summer of 1929.

31. Soon after the 24th September, 1928, the Moslem authorities resumed work on a building erected above the northern end of the Wall, overlooking a small garden belonging to the Moroccans, and immediately adjoining the Wailing Wall proper. They also began to convert certain houses adjacent to the southern end of the Wall into a Zawieh, a meeting place of some religious significance. A Meuzzin began to call to prayer from a roof adjacent to the pavement. At a later date they began to reconstruct a wall adjoining the Bab-el-Mogharbeh entrance to the Mosque which overlooked the Wailing Wall from the south end, and at the same time they opened a new door in this wall to give access to the Zawieh.

32. The Jewish authorities complained to the Government that these works were infringements of the status quo in that worship at the Wall was disturbed. Government thereupon sought the advice of His Majesty’s Government in November 1928, in order to ascertain their legal position in this matter. The matter was referred to the Law Officers of the Crown, and their opinion was received on the 17th May, 1929.

33. Basing themselves thereon, Government addressed a letter, dated the 11th June, to the Supreme Moslem Council on the particular subject to houses adjacent to the southern end of the Wall into a Zawieh, since, on the personal representation of the High Commissioner, the President of the Supreme Moslem Council had given an undertaking at an interview in May not to proceed with the contemplated structural alterations pending the receipt of the advice of His Majesty’s Government as to whether certain acts, or certain kinds of acts, would or would not constitute an interference with existing rights.

34. The letter read:

“In the Law Officers’ opinion, the Jews are entitled to conduct their worship without any greater disturbance than has occurred in the past, or may be inevitable by reason of changes in the habits of the population of Jerusalem or otherwise. If the erection of the proposed Zawieh results in the observance of Moslem rites in the presence of Jewish worshippers, or in an incursion by Moslems into the place where the Jews pray during the customary times of Jewish worship so as to cause genuine annoyance or disturbance, this would be regarded as an interference with existing rights.

“In accordance with these rulings His Excellency approves of the suspended work being resumed on conditions that the wall leading up to the Bab-el-Mogharbeh of the Haram area is built up to its former height, and that no annoyance or disturbance is caused to Jewish worshippers during the customary times of their prayer.”

35. A letter was then addressed, on the 13th June, to the Palestine Zionist Executive informing them, among other things, of the substance of the letter addressed to the Supreme Moslem Council. This letter, being in reply to a confidential communication, was also sent under confidential cover.

36. On the 4th July, the Palestine Zionist Executive replied, expressing regret at the piecemeal treatment of the question of the Wailing Wall, and pointing out that the condition that no annoyance or disturbance should be caused to Jewish worshippers during the customary times of their prayer was being infringed and that, therefore, existing rights were being interfered with. They drew attention to the following matters:

(i) The practice introduced during the preceding months of the Muezzin calling from the immediate neighborhood of the Wall during the hours of worship caused annoyance and disturbance, and would appear to be calculated to do so, since the practice was an innovation introduced after the incident on the Day of Atonement, 1928.

(ii) During the preceding few weeks the Moslems had been gathering in the garden on the left of the Wailing Wall area, and at other places adjacent thereto, during the hours of worship, and had been deliberately creating annoyance and disturbance by shouting and beating drums.

37. This form of disturbance, which, from reports received, the Government believed to be a deliberate provocation, reached its climax on Friday evening, the 5th July, when the Acting Deputy District Commissioner visited the Wall and “heard a din of drumming and singing which can only be described as deafening,” shortly before the President of the Supreme Moslem Council had given an undertaking to the Officer Administering the Government that the noise would not be continued. The noise was, therefore, stopped by the Sheikh of the Moghrabis on the instructions of the Acting Deputy District Commissioner, pending confirmation by the President in accordance with his undertaking. This was duly given, but the impression remained that this incident was a calculated move to bring pressure to bear on the Government to enforce the recommendations of the White Paper, and as a response to the Jewish propaganda regarding the Wailing Wall.

38. Shortly after this date (the 16th July), the principal officers of the Palestine Zionist Executive and of the Vaad Leumi left Palestine to attend the Sixteenth Zionist Congress at Zurich, which opened on Sunday, the 28th July, and lasted until Sunday, the 11th August.

39. About the middle of July, the Supreme Moslem Council resumed work on the Zawieh and the wall of the Bab-el-Magharbeh, in accordance with the permission granted by Government in the letter of the 11th June.

On account of its being marked “confidential,” the letter of the 18th June from the Government had not been communicated to the other Jewish public bodies by the Palestine Zionist Executive.

The Jews, unaware of the fact that the Moslems were acting with the permission of Government, saw with consternation the work proceeding at the southern end of the Wailing Wall. The perturbation among the Jews of Jerusalem swiftly spread throughout Palestine, and was communicated to London and the world, and especially to the Congress then sitting at Zurich.

40. The Acting Deputy District Commissioner, Jerusalem, anticipated the action of the Central Government by informing Chief Rabbi Kook, who had requested that the work should be promptly stopped, in a letter dated the 21sst July of the facts which had been given confidentially to the Palestine Zionist Executive on the 13th June. The substance of that letter was published in the “Palestine Bulletin” and “Doar Hayom” on the 22nd July. Unfortunately, in the Acting Deputy District Commissioner’s letter, the phrase “Customary hours of Jewish worship” was mistranslated into Hebrew as “fixed hours of Jewish worship.” The nature of the error was, however, immediately explained.

41. The fears of the Jews as to the effects of the Government’s decisions were enhanced by the manner in which these decisions had become known. The Press took on a very bitter tone, accusing the Government of treachery and secret plotting to deprive the Jews of their rights at their Holiest place.

On the 24th July they represented to the Government as follows:

(i) There were no “fixed times” of prayer for Jews at the Wailing Wall, whatever might be intended by the phrase “customary times.”

(ii) They understood that the Zawieh would be used for worship; Moslem worship and Jewish worship would, therefore, conflict, since “customary times” in the Jewish sense means “any times.”

(iii) The opening in the wall of the Magharbeh lane turned a cul-de-sac into a thoroughfare and thereby increased, indefinitely and permanently, danger of a collision.

42. From that moment, the tension became more and more acute. A Jewish Organization for the Defense of the Wall was created, of which Professor Klausner, the noted scholar and writer of world-wide reputation, was the founder and head.

The tone of the Press, both Jewish and Arab, became more and more violent.

43. Meanwhile, at Zurich, after years of patient labor, Dr. Weizmann had succeeded in broadening the basis of the Jewish Agency. Up to that time the Zionist Organization had been the Jewish Agency. Henceforward, the Jewish Agency would consist of Zionist and non-Zionists in equal proportions united on the platform of the up-building of Palestine.

In the atmosphere of this great political achievement, the Congress dealt with the question of the Wailing Wall, among other things. One of the sessions was suspended as a sign of mourning when the delegated head the news about the Zawieh and the opening in the southern wall.

A special airplane, carrying Lieutenant-Colonel Kisch, a member of the Palestine Zionist Executive, and Mr. David Yellin, of the Vaad Leumi, was dispatched to London, so that the Secretary of State might be interviewed about this matter.

44. In the report of the meetings of the Congress, the following statement is attributed to Mr. Sacher, of the Palestine Zionist Executive:

“In reference to the Wailing Wall, the Executive have submitted that the whole question is governed by the Mandate, and that the doctrine of the status quo hitherto adopted by the Government as a basis of policy is not warranted by the Mandate, and that our rights under the Mandate are more complete and more extensive than those embraced within the status quo.”

45. The proceedings of the Congress were reported and commented on in the Arabic and Jewish Press in Palestine, and all these events were followed very closely by the Moslem authorities.

The effect of these reports on the minds and feelings of the Arabs was disturbing; for they felt that their suspicions as to why the White Paper had not been implemented and the status quo defined were confirmed. They believed that the explanation was that the Jews had not accepted the decision of the British Government contained in the White Paper, and that their hidden but powerful influence was preventing any action from being taken until that decision could be reversed to meet their wishes.

46. The occurrences at the Wailing Wall on the days immediately preceding the outbreak in August last need not be recounted here.

The present situation is that the High Commissioner has made provisional regulations governing the observances of the Jews and the conduct of the Moslems at the Wall in the interests of public order. These regulations were issued immediately before the Jewish New Year (the 4th October 1929) accompanied by the following communiqué:

“In the interests of good order and decorum the High Commissioner has issued certain instructions to the officers of the Government concerned in regard to the use of the Wailing or Western Wall.

“These instructions are of a temporary and provisional character. They do not purport to define the existing rights of either Moslems or Jews, nor do they prejudice the rights and claims of Jews or Moslems. These instructions will remain in force only pending the determination of existing rights by an authoritative body which His Excellency has requested the Secretary of State to cause to be constituted for the purpose.”

It was thus made plain that the Regulations were provisional and would not prejudice the authoritative definition of rights.

They have, nevertheless, been received with a storm of protest from both sides.

Enclosure II to Confidential Dispatch to the Secretary of State dated January 17, 1930

Memorandum enumerating the Decisions taken in regard to the Establishments of the Police and Defense Forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan since 1925 and on the Defense Arrangements generally.

1. On the 16th April, 1925, a conference was held in Jerusalem, at which were present Mr. Amery, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir Samuel Hoare, Secretary of State for Air, and Sir Herbert Samuel, High Commissioner for Palestine.

This Conference decided that the reorganization of public security forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan should be undertaken in accordance with the following principles:

(i) A complete separation between the police forces and the local military forces;

(ii) Palestine and Trans-Jordan to be more self-dependent in regard to local defense;

(iii) A reduction to be made in the amount of the Grant-in-Aid hitherto made by the British Treasury on this account.

2. At the date of this Conference the Civil Forces of Palestine and Trans-Jordan were as follows:

(a) The Palestine Police Force;

(b) The Palestine Gendarmerie;

(c) The British Gendarmerie;

(d) The Arab Legion.

(a) The establishment of the Police was 73 officers and 966 other ranks, the latter being all Palestinians. They were distributed throughout Palestine on normal Police duty, i.e., the prevention, detection and prosecution of crime.

(b) The strength of the Palestine Gendarmerie, a semi-military force, was approximately 500. They were distributed as follows:
• Headquarters — Sarafand.
• 1 troop — Jericho.
• 1 troop — Tulkarem.
• 1 troop — Metullah.
• 2 troop — Beersheba.
• 1 troop — Roshpina.
• 1 troop — Beisan.
• 1 troop — Samakh.

One troop consisted of 1 British officer, 1 British Warrant Officer and approximately 50 other ranks.

The duty of the Palestine Gendarmerie was mainly frontier control and the prevention of armed raids into Palestine. They also assisted the police in dealing with gangs of highway robbers and carried out police duties in specified areas.

(c) The strength of the British Gendarmerie was approximately 450. They were distributed as follows:
• Headquarters and 2 Companies — Sarafand.
• 1 Company — Nazareth.
• 1 Company — Jerusalem.
• 1 Company — Nablus.
• 1 Officer and 17 Other Ranks — Haifa.

One company consisted of 4 Officers and approximately 80 Other Ranks. From 1922-1924 the British Gendarmerie comprised a Mounted Company as well.

The Force was trained on a semi-military basis and acted as an armed reserve to the Police and cooperated in the extirpation of brigands. They carried out motor car patrols on the main roads; they were employed on escort duties and guards. In certain emergencies detachments were temporarily stationed in Trans-Jordan.

(d) The Arab Legion, stationed in Trans-Jordan, had an establishment of 1,033 of all ranks and the Police and Prisons Staff of 72.

By the end of 1925 the numbers had been increased to 1,253 and 219, respectively, principally on account of the taking over of the Ma’an Vilayet by the Trans-Jordan Government.

3. Besides the Civil Forces described above, the following military forces were stationed in Palestine and Trans-Jordan:
• 1 Regiment of Cavalry.
• 1 Squadron of Airplanes.
• 1 Company of Armored Cars (R.A.F.).
• 1 Wireless Company (R.C. of Signals).
• Palestine General Hospital.
Together with ancillary services.

4. No written record of the Jerusalem Conference of the 16th April, 1925, appears to exist, but the general lines of the scheme of reorganization approved were stated in a letter from the Air Ministry to the Colonial Office, dated the 19th May, 1925, and were communicated to the High Commissioner of Palestine in Colonial Office dispatch, Secret, the 16th July, 1925 (11/705/S/26), as follows:

(a) The British Gendarmerie to be reduced to 200 and to be absorbed in the Police Force under the Acting Inspector-General of Police;

(b) The total strength of the Police to be raised to 1,500;

(c) The Palestine Gendarmerie to become the Local Military Force at a strength of 500 in the first instance, to be taken over by the Air Officer Commanding;

(d) The Cavalry Regiment to be withdrawn;

(e) Remaining units to remain unchanged.

5. Sir Herbert Samuel thought that the scheme proposed at the Conference of the 16th April, 1925, involved considerable risks to the safety of the country, and in a Secret dispatch to the Secretary of State, dated the 19th April, 1925, he expressed his views on the situation.

In that dispatch Sir Herbert Samuel dwelt especially on the limitations of air-craft and armored cars in a country such as Palestine, and suggested that a small British Military Force, preferably two companies of Infantry, should again be stationed in Palestine on the withdrawal of the cavalry regiment.

That suggestion, however, was definitely rejected by the Air Ministry in their letter of the 19th May, 1926, enclosed with Mr. Amery’s Secret dispatch of the 16th July, 1925.

6. In his telegram No. 198 of the 3rd July, 1925, the Secretary of State informed the Palestine Government that no official decision regarding the exact measures to be adopted in connection with the reorganization of the Palestine Gendarmerie would be reached until Lord Plumer had examined the question on the spot.

7. After studying the problem Lord Plumer made his proposals in his Confidential dispatches of the 30th October, 1925, and the 4th February, 1926.

He proposed the disbandment of the British Gendarmerie and the Palestine Gendarmerie, and the reconstitution of the Arab Legion as the Trans-Jordan Police Force. He also recommended the raising of an Imperial mounted regiment to be recruited locally as a military force to be paid for by His Majesty’s Government. This force was raised and was called the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force.

Under Lord Plumer’s organization the local forces therefore consisted of:

(a) Palestine Police.

(b) Trans-Jordan Frontier Force.

(c) Trans-Jordan Police (afterwards renamed the Arab Legion).

8. The details of Lord Plumer’s proposals, as set out, were:

(a) Palestine Police to be reinforced by 5 officers and 212 other ranks from the Gendarmerie; and by a Training School.

(b) Trans-Jordan Frontier Force to be recruited from the Palestine Gendarmerie and the Arab Legion and to consist of the following:
• Amman — Headquarters, 36; 2 Companies Mounted Rifles, 309; 2 Troops Hotchkiss Guns, 75.
• Ma’an — 1 Camel Company, 153.
• Sarafand — 1 Company Mounted Rifles, 153.
• Total — 723.

(c) Trans-Jordan Police (afterwards renamed the Arab Legion) to be gradually reduced, by the completion of contracts and recruitment to the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force, from the existing establishment of 1,400 to a force of 650, not costing more than £70,000. The Trans-Jordan Authorities, however, doubted the expediency of reducing the Civil Police below 930 at an approximate cost of £90,000 a year.

9. In his Confidential dispatch of the 30th October, 1925, Lord Plumer also expressed the opinion that the then-existing establishment of Royal Air Force in Palestine and Trans-Jordan was inadequate and should be increased by two flights.

The Air Ministry objected to this on financial, strategic and political grounds (vide Secret telegram from Sir Hugh Trenchard to Lord Plumer of the 20th November, 1925, “The financial question at home is at present supreme.” Vide also Colonial Office Dispatch, Confidential A of the 14th January, 1926.)

In view of these representations Lord Plumer waived his request for an increase of the Air Force on the understanding that the flight of Bristol Fighters then in Palestine should be replaced by D.H.Q.A.S.

10. Lord Plumer’s proposals for the reorganization of Public Security forces in Palestine as set out above were generally approved by the Secretary of State in his telegram No. 9 of the 18th January, 1926.

Correspondence followed mainly on the question as to whether the Imperial or the Palestine Government should bear the cost of the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force and the grant-in-aid to Trans-Jordan; and also on questions of detail regarding the organization.

11. In February 1926, the Cavalry Regiment (IX Lancers) left Palestine with the concurrence of Lord Plumer. In the course of 1926 the British Gendarmerie were disbanded, the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force was created, and the Palestine Police were strengthened.

12. The distribution of the reorganized military forces proposed by the Air Officer Commanding and concurred in by Lord Plumer (Confidential dispatch of the 5th February, 1926) was:
• Amman — 1 Company Mounted Rifles (T.J.F.F.); 2 Sections Machine Guns (T.J.F.F.).
• Ma’an — 1 Company Cavalry (T.J.F.F.).
• Sarafand — Headquarters (T.J.F.F.); 2 Companies Mounted Rifles (T.J.F.F.).
• Amman — 2 Flights Airplanes (R.A.F.); 1 Section Armored Cars (R.A.F.).
• Ramleh — 1 Flight Airplanes (R.A.F.); 2 Sections Armored Cars (R.A.F.).
• Sarafand — Command Headquarters (R.A.F.); Depot for Transport, Repair and Supplies (R.A.F.); Hospital (R.A.F.).

Before the end of 1926, however, Lord Plumer ordered that the whole of the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force should be stationed in Trans-Jordan.

The final distribution of the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force was:
• Zerqa — Headquarters and 3 Companies.
• Ma’an — 1 Company.

13. At the end of 1926, after the reorganization, the establishment of the Forces was:

(a) Palestine Police
British officers — 50
British other ranks — 200
Palestinian officers — 75
Palestinian other ranks — 1,300

(b) Trans-Jordan Frontier Forces
British officers and warrant officers — 31
Native Officers and other ranks — 756

(c) Arab Legion
British officers and warrant officers — 4
Native officers and other ranks — 833

(d) Royal Air Force
1 Squadron of airplanes
1 Company of Armored Cars
Palestine General Hospital and ancillary services

(e) Royal Corps of Signals
1 Wireless Company

14. The strength of the Palestine Police has remained fairly constant. The total establishment of Palestine Other Ranks remained from the end of 1917 to the 23rd August, 1929, at about 1,300; in addition, the establishment of British Other Ranks was 170 on the 23rd August.

The total number of British Officers remained 50, of whom 3 were attached to the British Section and 5 to the Prison Service.

In 1928 the cost of the Palestine Police was P£363,656, all of which was borne by Palestine funds.

15. There have been three successive annual reductions of the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force by 50 troopers, so that the establishment of the Force was reduced from 750 at the end of 1926 to a little over 600 on the 23rd of August, 1929.

It was Lord Plumer’s intention that the Force should be reduced progressively at the rate of 50 per annum until a strength of 500 was reached. This was to be made in the number of officers and non-commissioned officers except as regards British Warrant Officers, who should fall out as their contracts expired.

Lord Plumer intended that the cadres of officers and non-commissioned officers should continue in existence in order that the Force might quickly be expanded to 1,000 men should the necessity arise. With this object in view pari passu with the reduction, a Reserve was to be formed. The strength of this Reserve was fixed at first at 150, and in July 1929 50 men were enrolled. In 1928 the cost of the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force was P£151,909, of which one-sixth was borne by British funds. Palestine contributed P£31,000 to the cost of the military forces of the Mandatory in Palestine and Trans-Jordan.

16. The strength of the Arab Legion has remained the same; the Gendarmerie section has been reduced by 20, and the Police and Prisons staff strengthened.

In 1928 the cost of the Arab Legion, which was entirely borne by Trans-Jordan, was P£98,662.

17. The establishment of the Royal Air Force remained unchanged up to the 23rd August, 1929.

18. The defense arrangements generally were as follows:

(i) The Commandant of Police worked out the numbers and provenance of police reinforcements in certain defined emergencies, and local Defense Schemes were drawn up for the more important centers in conjunction with the Officer Commanding the Royal Air Force.

(ii) The Officer Commanding Trans-Jordan Frontier Force worked out similar schemes for that Force.

(iii) As there were no troops in Palestine, Lord Plumer inquired of the Air Ministry whence he would be able to obtain reinforcements in case of emergency. The reply was that, in case of emergency, the Cabinet would decide that point, but that, probably, reinforcements would come from Egypt in the first place.

19. It will thus be seen that the outstanding difference between the organization and disposition of the public security forces before and after the reorganization decided upon by the Colonial Office and the Air Ministry in 1925 were as follows:

20. At the beginning of August 1925 there was considerable semi-military support for the Police by the presence of detachments (each composed of 4 Officers and 80 men) of British Gendarmerie at the principal strategic centers of Palestine; and by the presence of detachments (each composed of 1 British Officer, 1 British Warrant Officer and 50 Palestinians) of the Palestine Gendarmerie at the principal strategic points on the frontier between Palestine and Trans-Jordan.

The responsibilities of the Palestine Police were also diminished by the fact that the Palestine Gendarmerie did all the Police work in the frontier zone.

21. At the beginning of August 1929, on the other hand, there was no support for the Police in Palestine in the shape of organized military or semi-military land forces. The police numbered about 1,300, as against 1,000 in 1928, but they were all engaged at the same time, so that no reserve of force was available. It was, therefore, impossible to send reinforcements to places where disturbances arose or were threatened.

22. The only semi-military units actually present and available in Palestine which could act as a reserve in support of the Palestinian Section of the Police were the British Section of the Palestine Police, the effective strength of which, in August 1929, was only 140, and the Special Constables, numbering about 170, who were specially enlisted after the disturbances had broken out.

Sir S. Wilson

Palestine

I attach copy of a note which I am sending direct (for reasons of urgency) to Mr. Edgcumbe.

(signed) TRS 27/3/30

Mr. Edgcumbe

Palestine

The Secretary of State gave me directions this morning that Sir John Chancellor’s dispatch of the 17th January should be circulated at once. He wishes a copy to go on to 2 Whitehall Gardens this morning, so as to assure that the prints are circulated to the Cabinet before next Wednesday’s meeting.

I attach a copy of the dispatch accordingly; also the draft of a brief covering memorandum which might be prefixed to it.

17/3/30

Draft Covering Memorandum

I circulate for the information of my colleagues a dispatch from Sir John Chancellor on the situation in Palestine. The dispatch was written before the findings of the Shaw Commission were known. I hope to circulate a separate memorandum dealing with the Commission’s Report and the situation arising out of it.