Peel Commission

After investigating the causes of the Arab Revolt that broke out in 1936, the British Royal Commission headed by Lord Peel concluded in its report of July 1937 that the conflict between the Arab and Jewish national movements could not be resolved within a single political framework. It proposed partitioning the Mandate territory (Eretz Israel) into a small Jewish state in the Galilee and the coastal plain, an Arab state joined to Transjordan, and a British-held enclave around Jerusalem and Bethlehem with a corridor to Jaffa, together with an exchange of populations. It was the first official British recommendation for territorial partition. The Zionist leadership, after a heated debate at the Twentieth Zionist Congress, accepted partition in principle as a basis for negotiation, while the Arab leadership rejected the proposal outright.