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Churchills Testimony before the Peel Commission, to examine the future of Britains Palestine Mandate

This summary of Churchills Testimony before the Peel Commission is taken from Volume V of the official biography Winston S. Churchill (pp. 847-48) by Martin Gilbert. His testimony was not included in the Report, because too controversial. The White Paper of 1939, which proscribed the continued settlement of Jews in Palestine, was a result of the political discussions that followed the publication of the Report.

1 With justice and fair consideration to those displaced

Following the outbreak of an Arab revolt in Palestine, intended by the Palestinian Arab leaders to halt all further Jewish immigration and to bring British rule to an end, the British Government appointed a Royal Commission, headed by Lord Robert Peel, to determine the future of Britains Palestine Mandate. Sir Winston Churchill was summoned as a witness before the commissioners on March 12th 1937. As Colonial Secretary in 1922 he had been responsible for the original administration of the Mandate for Palestine, and was closely questioned about his intentions at that time. In answer to a question from Lord Peel, he declared that the Jewish right to immigration ought not to be curtailed by the economic absorptive capacity of Palestine, and he spoke of the good faith of England to the Jews. This arose, he said: because we gained great advantages in the War. We did not adopt Zionism entirely out of altruistic love of starting a Zionist colony: it was a matter of great importance to this country. It was a potent factor on public opinion in America and we are bound by honour, and I think upon the merits, to push this thing as far as we can. () The British Government had certainly committed itself (he went on) to the idea that some day, somehow, far off in the future, subject to justice and economic convenience, there might well be a great Jewish State there, numbered

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by millions, far exceeding the present inhabitants of the country. () We never committed ourselves to making Palestine a Jewish State () but if more and more Jews gather to that Home and all is worked from age to age, from generation to generation, with justice and fair consideration to those displaced and so forth, certainly it was contemplated and intended (at the time) that they might in the course of time become an overwhelmingly Jewish State.

There is no such country as Palestine. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. (The term) Palestine is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it.
Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, Syrian Arab leader to the Peel Commission

2 Where the Arab goes, it is often desert

The deputy chairman of the Commission, Sir Horace Rumbold, took up the questioning. Was there not, he asked, harsh injustice to the Arabs if Palestine attracted too many Jews from outside. Churchill replied that even when the Jewish Home will become all Palestine, as it eventually would, there was no injustice. Why (Churchill continued) is there harsh injustice done if people come in and make a livelihood for more (people), and make the desert into palm groves and orange groves? Why is it injustice because there is more work and wealth for everybody? There is no injustice. The injustice is when those who live in the country leave it to be desert for thousands of years. When Rumbold pointed out the danger to British troops of the periodical disturbances in Palestine, Churchill replied that the idea of creating a National Home for the Jews was the prime and dominating pledge upon which Britain must act. If Britain became weak, somebody else might have to take it on, but while Britain remained in Palestine that is what we are undoubtedly pledged to. Rumbold spoke up for the Arabs, who were, he said, the indigenous population, subjected in 1918 to the invasion of a foreign race. Churchill objected to the phrase foreign race. The Arabs, he said, had come in after the Jews. It was the great hordes of Islam who smashed Palestine up. You have seen the terraces on the hills which used to be cultivated, he told Rumbold, which under Arab rule have remained a desert. Rumbold insisted that the backwardness of Palestine was the result of Turkish rule, but Churchill insisted that where the Arab goes it is often desert. When Rumbold spoke of the Arab civilization in Spain, Churchill retorted: I am glad they were thrown out. It was for the good of the world, he told Lord Peel a few mo-

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ments later: that the place should be cultivated, and it never will be cultivated by the Arabs. Towards the end of the session, Rumbold asked Churchill when he would consider the Jewish Home to be established, and Britains undertaking fulfilled. At what point? Rumbold asked. To which Churchill replied: When it was quite clear the Jewish preponderance in Palestine was very marked, decisive, and when we were satisfied that we had no further duties to discharge to the Arab population, the Arab minority.

3 The aftermath
None of Churchills evidence was included in the Commissions Report. He was even reluctant to have it printed secretly. There are a few references to nationalities, he wrote to Lord Peel on March 16, which would not be suited to appear in a permanent record. The Peel Commission recommended to partition Palestine into two separate states, one Arab and one Jewish, reserving Jerusalem and a corridor to the sea as part of a permanent British controlled enclave. Churchill opposed this decision, believing that it was a breach of Britains pledge to the Jews, as expressed in the Balfour Declaration, to enable them to establish a Jewish Nation Home throughout the original area of the Mandate, from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan. Hubert Luns

The famous Winston Churchill picture shown above: In 1941, Churchill visited first Washington and then Ottawa. The Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, invited the famous photographer Yousuf Karsh to be present and to observe Churchill's expressions, moods, and attitudes while he addressed the Canadian Parliament. After the electrifying speech, I waited in the Speaker's Chamber, so Yousuf Karsh tells us, where, the evening before, I had set up my lights and camera. The Prime Minister, arm-in-arm with Churchill and followed by his entourage, started to lead him into the room. I switched on my floodlights; a surprised Churchill growled: What's this, what's this? No one had the courage to explain. I timorously stepped forward and said: Sir, I hope I will be fortunate enough to make a portrait worthy of this historic occasion. He glanced at me and demanded: Why was I not told? When his entourage began to laugh, this hardly helped matters for me. Churchill lit a fresh cigar, puffed at it with a mischievous air, and then magnanimously relented. You may take one. But to get the giant to walk grudgingly from his corner to where my lights and camera were set up some little distance away was a feat! Churchills cigar was ever present. I held out an ashtray, but he would not dispose of it. I went back to my camera and made sure that everything was all right technically. I waited; he continued to chomp vigorously at his cigar. I waited. Then I stepped toward him and, without premeditation, but ever so respectfully, I said, Forgive me, sir, and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me. It was at that instant that I took the photograph. The silence was deafening. Then, Mr. Churchill, smiling benignly, said: You may take another one. He walked toward me, shook my hand, and said: You can even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed.