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Zionist Commission

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Summary

The representative of the Zionist Organisation in Palestine, which the Haycraft Commission of Inquiry found had failed to carry conviction to the Arabs that the Jewish National Home would benefit them, inspiring only profound distrust, and whose conception of its duties had exercised an exacerbating rather than a conciliatory influence on the Arab population — a contributory cause of the May 1921 disturbances (Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with Correspondence Relating Thereto, PDF p.56-57).

Details

  • In the grievances the Commission of Inquiry records, the Arabs allege that the Government of Palestine has, as its official advisory body, a Zionist Commission bound to regard Jewish interests before all others and constituted by its singular prerogatives into an imperium in imperio (PDF p.53).
  • The distrust took root in the early days of the Military Administration, when Jews obtained permits to travel on and to import merchandise by military railways promptly because the Commission was accepted as sponsor for the Jews, while Arabs had no corresponding body; this inequality was clearly not the Commission’s fault and was probably inevitable, but created ill-will (PDF p.56-57).
  • The Commission was, in the inquiry’s opinion, better placed than any other unofficial body to conciliate the Arabs and render the Balfour Declaration policy acceptable to them; instead Arabs believe it desired to ignore them as a factor or combated their interests to Jewish advantage (PDF p.57).
  • An unfortunate impression was created by the Commission’s practice, abandoned since April 1920, of paying subsidies to Jewish policemen and Jewish Government clerks of junior grades in aid of their official salaries; evidence was also given that it put strong pressure on a large Jewish landowner of Richon-le-Zion to employ Jewish labour in place of Arabs employed on his farm since he was a boy, which he yielded to reluctantly (PDF p.57).
  • Its influence, exercised or believed to be exercised, over the framing of legislation and the selection, and occasionally reinstatement, of Government officials has done nothing to lessen Arab distrust, the Arabs having no similar body (PDF p.57).
  • The Jaffa Immigration House for newly arrived immigrants was under the Zionist Commission (PDF p.28).
  • Dr Eder, its acting Chairman, gave the evidence on the Zionist ideal recorded at PDF p.59.
  • Herbert Samuel’s despatch answers the complaint that Arabs have no similar body by recording that a Consultative Committee of leading Christian and Moslem notables has been constituted, to be in close and constant communication with the High Commissioner (PDF p.65).

Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with Correspondence Relating Thereto, David Eder, Jewish National Home, World Zionist Organization

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