The war in Gaza. The “Apartheid” Wall. Palestinian refugees. Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem. Roadblocks. Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Here are six reasons why Palestinians and, indeed, much of the entire world feel anger and even contempt for Israelis. Recent pressure on Israel by the international community (including Washington) is designed to roll back these irritants, once and for all. The goal is to return to a more simple time, perhaps to conjure up a “perfect world” where peace will flourish. Is that not unreasonable?

If you subscribe to the Palestinian narrative, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. If you believe the pro-Israel websites, the answer is an emphatic ‘no.’ But, there is a third way to get at the truth, one best suited for the innocent bystander who doesn’t mind spending a few afternoons reading a long-forgotten historical document.

That document, freely available on the Web, is the well-known, but rarely read, 1937 Peel Commission Report, a last-ditch effort by the British government to prevent the Palestine Mandate from exploding. It offered a brilliant analysis of the situation before there was an occupied West Bank, before there was a war in Gaza, or an “Apartheid Wall,” or roadblocks, or Palestinian refugees, or Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem. It was written at a simpler time, when the slate was relatively clean, and both sides had before them an uncharted future through which to navigate as they so wished. And, what did they wish for?

Lord Peel made that an easy question to answer. Starting on page 77, he listed 11 key policy statements from an assortment of British and Jewish sources, including Winston Churchill and the 1921 Zionist Congress. They all went on record advocating a policy of goodwill and peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jew, a state of grace that he termed “the assumption.”

Said Peel: “British Ministers, Commissioners of Inquiry and the spokesmen of Zionism had unanimously reaffirmed the assumption on which the successful operation of the Mandate had rested from the outset, namely, that somehow and at some time, Jews and Arabs would cooperate in promoting the peace and welfare of Palestine.”

He then wrote ominously of the Arab attitude towards that assumption: “Only one voice was missing from the chorus – the Arab voice. “Not once since 1919 had any Arab leader said that cooperation with the Jews was even possible.”

Peel drove the point home by sharing the minutes recorded during testimony by the supreme Palestinian religious and political leader of the time, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammed Amin al-Husseini.

Question: “Does His Eminence think that this country can assimilate and digest the 400,000 Jews now in the country?”

Answer: “No.”

Follow-up question: “Some of them would have to be removed by a process, kindly or painful, as the case may be?”

The mufti’s chilling answer: “We must leave all this to the future.”

Peel understood exactly what the mufti meant, and it wasn’t pretty. He immediately juxtaposed this interchange with a retelling of the recent massacre of Assyrian Christians in Iraq. He also reminded the reader of the massacre of Greek Christians by Turks in Smyrna. He knew what the risks were for a Jewish minority, should the British leave (which they later did). His warning was clear and unequivocal: “We cannot abandon them to the good intentions of an Arab government.”

For Peel, there were not six irritants, but only one underlying annoyance that inflamed passions in the area: living, breathing, Jewish immigrants.

Read the 1937 Peel Report. It is one of history’s best-kept secrets. It examines Arab-Jewish relations in that “perfect world” before refugees or settlements, walls or roadblocks. It recalls how early Zionists were nonviolent, generally law-abiding and prone to compromise. It also explains, in an understanding manner, how indigenous Arabs were threatened by an ever-increasing number of energetic Jewish immigrants and their entirely legal land purchases. It discussed the reasons why those Arabs chose the path of violence, bloodshed, terrorism and even massacres.

The Peel Report chronicles, as nothing else, what was and still is the core issue, namely the unwillingness of Arabs to live side by side and in peace with a vibrant Jewish state. Before rolling back the clock, our decision-makers in Washington need to read their history.

 

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