'File 11/32 Royal Commission on Palestine' [‎15v] (30/308)

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PART III : THE POSSIBILITY OF A LASTING SETTLEMENT
Chapter XX.—The Force of Circumstances
The problem of Palestine is briefly restated.
Under the stress of the World War the British Government made
promises to Arabs and Jews in Order to obtain their support. On
the strength of those promises both parties formed certain
expectations.
The application to Palestine of the Mandate System in general
and of the specific Mandate in particular implied the belief that
the obligations thus undertaken towards the Arabs and the
respectively would prove in course of time to be mutually compatible'
owing to the conciliatory effect on the Palestinian Arabs of the
material prosperity which Jewish immigration would bring to
Palestine as a whole. That belief has not been justified, and there
seems to be no hope of its being justified in the future.
But the British people cannot on that account repudiate their
obligations, and, apart from obligations, the existing circumstances
in Palestine would still require the most strenuous efforts bn the part
of the Government which is responsible for the welfare of the country.
The existing circumstances are summarized as follows.
An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national com
munities within the narrow bounds of one small country. There
is no common ground between them. Their national aspirations are
incompatible. The Arabs desire to revive the traditions of the
Arab golden age. The Jews desire to show what they can achieve
when restored to the land in which the Jewish nation was born.
Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the
service of a single State.
The conflict has grown steadily more bitter since 1920 and t|P*\
process will continue. Conditions inside Palestine, especially tfJW
systems of education, are strengthening the national sentiment of
the two peoples. The bigger and more prosperous they grow the
greater will be their political ambitions, and the conflict is aggravated
by the uncertainty of the future. “ Who in the end will govern
Palestine ? ” it is asked. Meanwhile, the “ external factors ” will
continue to operate with increasing force. On the one hand in less
than three years’ time Syria and the Lebanon will attain their national
sovereignty, and the claim of the Palestinian Arabs to share in the
freedom of all Asiatic Arabia will thus be fortified. On the other hand
the hardships and anxieties of the Jews in Europe are not likely to
grow less and the appeal to the good faith and humanity of the
British people will lose none of its force.
Meanwhile, the Government of Palestine, which is at present an
unsuitable form for governing educated Arabs and democratic Jews,
cannot develop into a system of self-government as it has elsewhere.