The Woodhead Commission, properly known as the Palestine Partition Commission, was established in 1938 in the British Mandate of Palestine to investigate the implementation of the Peel Commission's plan for a partition of Palestine.
The Commission comprised Sir John Woodhead, together with Sir Alison Russell, A. P. Waterfield, and T. Reid.[1] It was charged with examining the Peel Commission plan in detail, in order "to recommend boundaries for the proposed Arab and Jewish areas and the enclaves to be retained permanently or temporarily under British Mandate" and "to examine and report on the economic and financial questions involved in partition upon which decisions will require to be taken".[2] However, Woodhead also received secret instructions that he was to find partition to be impractical.[3]
The Commission spent more than three months in Palestine, taking evidence from witnesses in 55 sessions. However, no Arabs came forward to submit evidence.[4] In their report, they examined three possible modifications of the Peel Commission proposal, which they called Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C.[5] Plans A and B were found to be unworkable for reasons that included the large number of Arabs in the proposed Jewish State, since the compulsory population transfer proposed by the Peel Commission had been ruled out by the British government.[6]
The majority of the Commission chose Plan C as the best of the three options. It recommended:[7]
Despite preferring Plan C over the others, the Commission considered that there were financial and economic difficulties "of such a nature that we can find no possible way to overcome them within our terms of reference".[8] They suggested that the Arab and Jewish states not be given fiscal independence but instead the UK government accept "the very considerable financial liability involved".[8]
Two members of the Commission added Notes of Reservation to the report. Russell argued that Plan B was preferable to Plan C, while Reid argued that all three plans were fatally flawed.[9]
The report of the Woodhead commission was presented to Parliament and published on November 9th 1938.[10] As a consequence, the government issued a policy statement that "the political, administrative and financial difficulties involved in the proposal to create independent Arab and Jewish States inside Palestine are so great that this solution of the problem is impracticable".[11]
Britain later invited the parties to London in 1939 to participate in a third attempt to resolve the crisis, the St. James Conference (also known as the Round Table Conference of 1939). The recommendations were eventually rejected by both Jews and Arabs.
The report of the commission was published as "Palestine Partition Commission Report", Command Paper 5854, Printed and published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1938 (310 pages and 13 maps).
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