Palin Report 1920

The Palin Report or Palin Commission of Inquiry examined the rioting in Jerusalem between 4th and 7th April 1920. It foresaw increasing problems between the various parties and the administration.

Commission operations

The report was completed on 1st July 1920 at Port Said, and submitted in August 1920, though never published.

The Commission had three members, Major General P. C. Palin president, Brigadier General G. H. Wildblood and Lieutenant Colonel C. Vaughan Edwards and sat for 50 days. It examined 152 witnesses in eight languages (English, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Yiddish, Jargon, Russian and Hindustani) making the process more lengthy than usual.

ummary

The Zionist Commission was legally represented and used the inquiry to make a 'vigorous attack' upon the departing Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA). [Mr S. Alexander of the firm R. S. Devonshire & Co. Advocates, Cairo, cited Huneidi, p27.] Arab Palestinians lacked interest, rarely attended the court and were 'by no means so well prepared'.

The OETA had been wound up by the time the report was presented and Sir Herbert Samuel had become the first High Commissioner. Allenby advised that the Palin Report should be published but in anticipation of Zionist objections, it was decided only to convey the gist of the report verbally to a 'responsible' Zionist leader.

The report refers to various 'causes of the alienation and exasperation of the feelings of the population of Palestine'. It cites Jean de la Fontaine's lines in the original French to clarify the logic of events and the attitude of the local population.

::::"Cet animal est très méchant"
::::"Si on l'attaque il se défend." [Henry Laurens, "La Question de Palestine" Fayard, Paris, vol.1 1999 p.525]

It was sharply critical of the Zionists for exacerbating those concerns by their 'impatience, indiscretion and attempts to force the hands of the Administration'. There had been direct communication between the Foreign Office and the Chief Political Officer, Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, bypassing and sometimes contradicting the Administration. In 1919 the Foreign Office, at Chaim Weizmann's behest, granted the Anglo-Palestine Bank a monopoly on providing mortgages, thus forcing the Anglo-Egyptian Bank to abandon its recently negotiated easy terms of 6 percent for the bank, and 0.5 percent for administrative charges.

The report was critical of some of the actions of the military command, particularly the withdrawal of troops from inside Jerusalem early in the morning of Monday, April 5 and that, once Martial Law had been proclaimed, it was slow to regain control.

Mention is made of the formation of the Haganah:

'It seems scarcely credible that the fact that these men had been got together and were openly drilling at the back of Lemel School and on Mount Scopas [sic. = Mount Scopus] ... and yet no word of it reached either the Governorate or the Administration until after the riots.'

Lastly, the report expressed its alarm about the situation in Palestine, calling it 'exceedingly dangerous'. The Palin findings are similar to those of the Haycraft Report of the following year. The later report gives more emphasis to the Arab fear that extensive Jewish immigration would lead to Palestine becoming a Jewish dominion.

Notes

Bibliography

*Huneidi, Sahar "A Broken Trust, Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the Palestinians". 2001

Extracts

* [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Palin_Report Extracts] from the report.

ee also

*Zionism
*Anti-Zionism
*Timeline of Zionism
*1920 Palestine riots