Woodhead Commission

For the Woodhead Commission on the 1943 Bengal famine, see Famine Inquiry Commission.

The Woodhead Commission (officially the Palestine Partition Commission[1]) was a British technical commission established to propose "a detailed" partition scheme for Mandatory Palestine, including recommending the partition boundaries and examination of economic and financial aspects of the Peel Plan.[2][3]

The Commission was appointed at the end of February 1938 and conducted its investigations from April to early August 1938. It rejected the Peel Commission's plan mainly on the grounds that it required a large transfer of Arabs, and considered two other plans. It preferred a modification of the partition, which forms a satisfactory basis of settlement, if the United Kingdom government accept "the very considerable financial liability involved,"[4] that balances the Arab state budget.[5] In this plan, the entire Galilee and a corridor from Jaffa to Jerusalem would remain under British mandate.

It published its conclusions on November 9, 1938, after which the British government rejected the imminent partition of Palestine as involving insurmountable "political, administrative and financial difficulties".[6] Britain called for a conference in London for all relevant parties to work out a compromise.

  1. ^ Palestine Partition Commission Report, Command Paper 5854, Printed and published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1938 (310 pages and 13 maps)
  2. ^ Mandated Landscape: British Imperial Rule in Palestine 1929-1948
  3. ^ Policy in Palestine, December 23, 1937
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference archive.jta.org was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference WoodheadReport1938 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference MajestyStatement was invoked but never defined (see the help page).