The Cohen book has a map of Plan C on pp. 212, but as it's copyright I can't include it in the article. If someone wants to use it to draw a map to include in this article, let me know and I'll scan it in. Noel (talk) 18:22, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
The last sentence ("The recommendations were eventually rejected by both Zionists and Palestinian Arabs.")..is a bit unclear to me: is it this report (i.e. the Woodhead Commission) ..or was it the 1939 "Round Table" (= White Paper of 1939) that was "eventually rejected by both Zionists and Palestinian Arabs"? Huldra 03:08, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that the following summary from the UNSCOP report [1] is better, in particular it exposes the differences between the commissioners more clearly:
I removed these maps: A B C, because they are completely different from the original maps as reproduced in John Woodhead (1939). "The Report of the Palestine Partition Commission". International Affairs. 19 (2). Royal Institute of International Affairs: 171–193.. I'll attempt to bring a scan of Map C. Zero talk 13:08, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
I removed: "The Commission rejected Arab claims that the Jews had acquired the "best land" in Palestine: "That much of the land now in possession of Jews has become the best land is a truer statement...It was impossible not to be impressed when inspecting some of the bare rocky places where Jewish settlements have been or are in the course of being made. Such remarkable efforts may well disturb statistics. [The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Its History in Maps, Martin Gilbert, p. 29]" This appears in the "Note of reservations by Sir Alison Russell", not in the canonical report of the commission. Zero talk 07:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
The date was Nov 9, not Nov 8, for both publication of the report and presentation to parliament. Proof in Hansard. Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
"Russell argued that the plan was not in accord with the obligations to the Jews." - refers only to Plan C and is just one sentence from Russell's 14-page statement. Russell supported Plan B, like it said before and will again. Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
"it is only the Jewish contributions to tax revenue that have enabled Palestine to balance its budgets." - there is no such statement in the report. The source refers to the future economic feasibility of an Arab state: "This conclusion is, in our opinion, equally valid under plan C, plan B, and any other plan of partition which does not involve the inclusion in the Arab State of an area containing a large number of Jews, whose contributions to tax-revenue would alone enable that state to balance its budget." (page 196). Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
"tiny Jewish state surrounded by a much larger Arab state and a British zone" - one historian's pov can't be presented as a plain fact, especially when it is contrary to the Commission's pov. Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
"Plan A was the Peel plan" - needs qualification given that the maps are significantly different. Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
"According to the report: 'The customs revenue would ..." - this section is presented as if it is quotation from the report, but it is not. Actually it is composed of sentences paraphrased from different parts of the report, including parts of two different economic plans (called "Formula A and Formula B") that are presented as alternatives. It would be better to just quote the report's conclusions, which I will do. Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
It's doesn't seem clear what Zero is objecting to. -- MichaelNetzer ( talk) 20:16, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
The report of the Woodhead Commission is a better source for what the report contains than random newspaper articles or other secondary sources. While we can rely on secondary sources for the background, overall impact, related issues, etc, when it comes to quoting from the report there is no excuse for quoting things that are not there. I'm not accusing Gilabrand of OR, only of using sub-optimal sources and in a few cases of removing more accurate cited material that was there before. She even deleted the bibliographic details of the report, so some of the citations now mean nothing. Overall her edits made the article considerably less accurate. I'm not embarrassed to be devoted to getting the facts right. Zero talk 22:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Out of JTA's summary of the plan of "economic federalism", only the last sentence is a quotation from the commission report. It is part of the last sentence of the Introduction (page 14). None of the rest appears, though fragments of it appear scattered around in different places. Looking again at JTA, they don't even claim to be quoting the report but only some unidentified summary of it. We shouldn't pretend to quote the report when we aren't, and we don't need to quote some unidentified intermediate source when the original is readily available. Zero talk 10:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I have been reading the Peel and Woodhead reports, and I am trying to better understand the economic difficulties mentioned here. Going by the Peel report, it seem like its a reference to Jewish and British Subvention. It appears that Jewish per capita revenue contributions were higher, which allowed better public services for the Arabs, so partition would mean that Arabs would no longer profit from the taxable capacity of the Jewish, and thus the Jewish state would have to pay the Arabs state?! Take half of the debt total debt, while the Arabs will get additional grants from British( source. This seems weird. Does anyone have any WP:RS that covers this topic.-- PLNR ( talk) 01:03, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
The Plan A/B/C and some other parts seem to be sourced to a Primary resource. Does anyone have a secondary source which covers those plans in details to make sure that all important segments are duly represented and that those section are not the result of original research.-- PLNR ( talk) 12:38, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
We can now sum up the position. The question whether partition is practicable involves considerations of two kinds : practical and political. The former concern chiefly finance and economics ; the administrative difficulties are great, but they cannot be called insuperable, if the will to find a solution is present. But the financial and economic difficulties, as described in this chapter, are of such a nature that we can find no possible way to overcome them within our terms of reference. Rather than report that we have failed to devise any practicable plan, we have proposed, in paragraph 506, a modification of partition which, while it with- holds fiscal autonomy from the Arab and Jewish States, seems to us, subject to certain reservations, to form a satisfactory basis of settlement, if His Majesty's Government are prepared to accept the very considerable financial liability involved.
There remain the political difficulties. We cannot ignore the possibility that one or both of the parties may refuse to operate partition under any conditions. It is not our duty, as a fact-finding Commission, to advise what should be done in that event. But there is still the possibility that both sides may be willing to accept a reasonable compromise. We cannot feel confident that this will happen, but we put forward the proposals in this chapter in the hope that they may form the basis of a settlement by negotiation. "
There are multiple issues involved here. I'll leave the "real agenda" issue to below and address the summary here. The problem with the text Ykantor added, and also with the claim that the text quoted above sums up the commission's conclusions is that both of them refer only to the commission's conclusions about Plan C. To see this you have to at least skim the report and not just look at a page or two. Plans A and B were rejected primarily on demographic grounds; this is stated on many pages. Because of these demographic reasons, the Galilee and the Jerusalem corridor were excluded from both the Jewish and Arab states. The effect was that the Arab State would exclude more than half the Arab population of Palestine and almost all of the high quality land owned by Arabs. It's hardly surprising that this left the Arab State with poor financial prospects. It is essential to note that these financial prospects were for the Arab State that the Woodhead Commission designed, after rejecting other plans (including Peel's) on other grounds. Ykantor wrote in 17 articles (a highly antisocial action), that the partition plan was rejected because there could not be a financially viable Arab State; that is simply a false summary. The text quoted above is not a summary of the whole document but a summary of the chapter, which is about Plan C as it says in Para 484. Woodhead himself emphasised that in his public summary (published as "The Report of the Palestine Partition Commission", International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1931-1939), Vol. 18, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1939), pp. 171-193): "the greater part of the Arab wealth of Palestine lies outside the Arab State, and that must be so under any plan of partitition which is based upon the inclusion in the Arab State of the fewest possible Jews and Jewish enterprises and on the creation of a mandated enclave for the Holy Places at Jerusalem and Bethlehem". Zero talk 04:44, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Regarding the "secret agenda" of the Woodhead commission: the opinion of Morris is not universally held and should not be stated as a fact. Alas Morris does not give a reference, but one reason it is a common belief is that a seminal paper on the subject by Galnoor (Territorial partition of Palestine —The 1937 decision, Political Geography Quarterly. Vol 10. 1991, 382–404.) cited an archival source for "However, the new Commission also received secret instructions according to which they were to conclude that partition was not possible." I added that to this article long ago. The problem is that Galnoor changed his mind later on. In a book he published on the same subject 6 years later (cited in the article) he gave the same archival source for a much weaker statement: "The commission was secretly told that, in accordance with the cabinet's decision, it was within the commission's authority to recommend that "no workable scheme could be produced."". That could have come with an unwritten "wink, wink" as an instruction to kill the plan, but it makes perfect innocent sense as well since the formal Terms of Reference were to recommend how to implement partition and don't explicitly give the option of recommending against. Galnoor is a specialist on this subject and cited sources, unlike Morris who isn't and didn't, so I don't think Morris should appear as the bringer of unattributed facts that others more qualified don't consider facts. Zero talk 05:14, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
- exorbitant interest rates PAYED TO MONEY LENDERS,
- lot of plots were owned by a group of farmers, so every year the farmer got another plot and had no incentive to invest in manure and other means.
:- Payments to local notables etc.
- The poor farmer wheat seasonal product was around 1 quarter of the Egyptian farmer. There was a major period of decline in the rural economy commenced in the late 1920s and lasted until 1939 because of drought,locust, field mice etc. The local Arab newspapers of the period wrote about these problems. No wonder they could not pay taxes. It seems that the mandate government did not care about the poor fellahin. Ykantor ( talk) 19:13, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
-Concerning the secret agenda, it seems that Galnur supports Morris view. I added to the article a quote of Galnur.
- Zero: "The text quoted above is not a summary of the whole document but a summary of the chapter, which is about Plan C". Not true. the text of the Conclusion passage (p. 246) is a summary of the last chapter of the report's body, which is called "CHAPTER XXII.—SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION"(p. 232). It is clear that this chapter, and especially its' last passage - conclusions, should be the source for the Wikipedia article. However, if you wish to elaborate on plans A,B, based on the report's previous chapters, I have no objections.
- Zero: "the partition plan was rejected because there could not be a financially viable Arab State; that is simply a false summary.". Not true. This text is a quote of the report, so it cannot be false. You might have said that you wish to add a background, though.
-E Zero: "It is essential to note that these financial prospects were for the Arab State that the Woodhead Commission designed, after rejecting other plans (including Peel's) on other grounds.". Not true. the statement is clear: "it was impossible, whatever boundaries we might recommend, to set up an Arab State which should be self-supporting".
- Why such a low income of the proposed Arab state? If the article will explain it, it should include Zero's explanation together with the report's body reasons. i.e.
Ykantor, I suggested before that you read para 484; here it is for your convenience (my emphasis):
So the Chapter itself says it is about Plan C. Then the chapter has 7 sections, each considering one aspect of Plan C, saying so explicitly multiple times and referring for its data back to the earlier chapters about Plan C. The words you quote "we found that it was impossible, whatever boundaries we might recommend" are prefixed by "In chapter XVIII", which is a detailed economic analysis of Plan C. The figures like 610,000 quoted just below come from the tables in chapter XVIII about Plan C. Compare the text in this paragraph with that in Para 383 of Chapter XVIII:
It is almost verbatim, the same numbers, proving beyond doubt that this paragraph is about Plan C. Zero talk 09:57, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
Ykantor, You claim to have found proof that Galnoor agrees with Morris, but the source you brought shows that Galnoor does not agree with Morris. First, Galnoor does not say that the Cabinet voted to reject partition; he says they voted to "delay all immediate action for more than a year and meanwhile to appoint another commission to examine the plan and submit its opinion". It's completely different. Only "in retrospect" does Galnoor consider that this decision was the turning point against partition. Then regarding the secret advice to Woodhead, Galnoor does not say that Woodhead was instructed to kill partition. He was told that the committee was permitted to recommend against partition. Again, it is completely different. Galnoor summarises "That is to say, the government told the commission that it was prepared to accept a recommendation to retract the partition recommendations of the Peel commission". Again, "prepared to accept" is utterly different from instructing the commission to find against partition, and even weaker than saying that the government would prefer or like such a decision. Galnoor simply does not agree with Morris' black and white sentence. Zero talk 10:18, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
Having now spent more than an hour reading the minutes of the Cabinet meeting (available from the National Archives), I think that even Galnoor's description is slightly overstated. The background is a document (CAB 24/273/14 also called CP 289 (37)) from one week earlier which gives a draft "Despatch to Acting High Commissioner for Palestine" from the Secretary of State for the Colonies. That Despatch states that the policy of the British Government is to accept the Peel Commission's recommendations that "scheme of tripartite division is the best and most hopeful solution of the problem". It then states terms for a new commission to advise on the best way to implement that policy (i.e. not to investigate whether partition should or should not be carried out). In the meeting of Dec 8 referred to by Galnoor (CAB 46 (37) also called CAB 23/90A/8), various people argued for and against the wording of the Despatch. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs noted that "The Terms of Reference would not enable the Commission to hear opinions to the effect that partition was unworkable, or to say so themselves." Finally they passed a resolution to ask for a revised Despatch, details to be decided on consultation with named people. Paragraph (g) says:
There was absolutely no decision to reject partition at this meeting. Regarding the delay mentioned by Galnoor, there was no decision to create a delay but only a realisation that the process would take a long time. It says that the new commission would take "many months" since hydrographic and other surveys had to be completed first, and even after a plan had been recommended it would have to be brought to the Parliament and the League of Nations. Thus the resolution at (f) says
In other words, it is quite wrong to state that the Cabinet rejected partition at this meeting. They did not. Nor did they decide to ask Woodhead to bury the partition plan. Zero talk 11:54, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
These is the differences between Zero and myself:
title | Zero | ykantor |
The present text (see also note A,B,C,D above) | Support; Have not referred yet to claims of mistaken text. | Oppose. Includes mistakes (see note A,B,C,D above) |
My edit compared to the previous text | Zero removed my edit while claiming: removed massive distortion | Support: The text is a quote of the relevant chapter, so it can not be wrong. My edit replaced a clearly wrong text, hence it is an improvement. |
Ykantor (past) version-1 | Oppose: Your text tries to blame the whole failure on the Arab economy, it is highly misleading and | " . see above |
Ykantor (past) version-2 | Oppose: not a correct summary of Woodhead's case | Support: It is correct. It is agreed to add whatever is supposedly missing, |
What is Chapter XXII about? | Chapter itself says it is about Plan C | This last chapter's title speaks for itself: "CHAPTER XXII.—SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION "(p. 232). The chapter apparently does not mention plans A,B because the commission decided that it should not be in the conclusions. Moreover, it is agreed to add this info to the article. |
My editing of multiple articles | Oppose: Ykantor wrote in 17 articles (a highly antisocial action) | Support: My edit improved those articles, hence it is a positive act. |
"the partition plan was rejected because there could not be a financially viable Arab State;" | 'that is simply a false summary.". | This is not written in my text. My text is a direct quote that the report text, and says that the commission propose a partition plan which is satisfactory if the U.K will pay "the very considerable financial"... (annual payment to the Arab state). |
If you do not agree with the table presentation of your views, I'll appreciate if you modify it accordingly.
Will you cooperate if I'll refer the discussion to wp:drn? Ykantor ( talk) 20:26, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
-replaced a mistaken text 1: "It published its conclusions on November 9, 1938, ultimately rejecting partition as unfeasible on administrative and financial grounds."
- and mistaken text 2: "concluded that no plan of partition could be evolved within the terms of reference which would, in the view of the members of the Commission, offer much hope of success, for eventual establishment of self-supporting Arab and Jewish states"
- with the correct text: "and found that "it was impossible, whatever boundaries we might recommend, to set up an Arab State which should be self-supporting". It proposed "a modification of partition which, ...seems, subject to certain reservations, to form a satisfactory basis of settlement", if the U.K is prepared to provide a "sufficient assistance to enable the Arab State to balance its budget".
- Hence my edit clearly improved the article.
- As to your comment: "to mention that the WC rejected the Peel plan outright and why", please go ahead. As said previously, if in your opinion a text from the report body is sufficiently important than it could be added to the conclusions. Ykantor ( talk) 17:11, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
@ Zero0000: : The report's quote which you added today says:"Woodhead identified two reasons for the financial infeasibility of an Arab state....the greater part of the Arab wealth lay in the places that would become part of the Jewish state due to their large Jewish populations".
-An earlier quote in the same section says: "It is not possible, under our terms of reference, to recommend boundaries which will afford a reasonable prospect of the eventual establishment of a self-supporting Arab State. This conclusion is, in our opinion, equally valid under plan C, plan B, and any other plan of partition which does not involve the inclusion in the Arab State of an area containing a large number of Jews, whose contributions to tax-revenue would alone enable that state to balance its budget".
-At a first glance, those 2 quotes seem to contradict each other. Will it be possible for you to elaborate on this point? Ykantor ( talk) 19:11, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
References
" It found that "it is not possible, under our terms of reference, to recommend boundaries which will afford a reasonable prospect of the eventual establishment of a self-supporting Arab State. This conclusion is, in our opinion, equally valid under plan C, plan B, and any other plan of partition which does not involve the inclusion in the Arab State of an area containing a large number of Jews, whose contributions to tax-revenue would alone enable that state to balance its budget".
if the Arab rural population continues to increase at its present rate, the demand for such supplementary employment, and even the pressure to leave the land and seek for whole-time employment in the towns, will be intensified—quite apart from any further acquisition of land by the Jews, (iii) And thirdly, that since such employment can only be provided by capital, and, with few exceptions, capital is only likely to be invested in Palestine by Jews, the future for the Arab population is already menacing—unless Jewish immigration and Jewish imports of capital are allowed to continue.
" It is indeed an ironic commentary on the working of the Mandate, and perhaps on the science of government, that this result, which so far from encouraging has almost certainly hindered close settlement by Jews on the land, could scarcely have been brought about except through the appropriation of tax-revenue contributed by the Jews".
The Arabs would be no better off with a larger population than to-day on the same amount of land, unless they learn to cultivate their land more intensively and unless in addition they can find supplementary employment in the towns. And neither of these two things can be brought about without the assistance of Jewish taxable capacity and Jewish capital. The alternative possibility of assistance by the United Kingdom Government may, we feel sure, be ruled out, for we cannot imagine that, if Jewish immigration were to be completely closed down in Palestine, His Majesty's Government would be willing to provide funds from the British taxpayer's pocket for the sake of enabling a larger Arab population to support itself in Palestine.
" there would be much to be said for a pause or standstill of several years during which no further acquisition by the Jews of agricultural land whatever …would be permitted outside the Jewish State. This standstill would give time for the present bitterness of feeling between the two races to die down…But if there is to be no assurance of further Jewish agricultural settlement beyond what can be done on the land which the Jews already possess, it cannot be expected that His Majesty's Government will be willing to spend the United Kingdom taxpayer's money on the development of the land for the sole benefit of the Arabs ; the Jews obviously will not do s o ; and it is quite certain that the revenues of the Mandated Territory alone will not be adequate for the purpose".
"Of the total Arab cultivable land about 2*4 per cent, consists of citrus and banana plantations".
" The following table gives the estimated revenue for 1938/39" (palestine mandate).
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The Cohen book has a map of Plan C on pp. 212, but as it's copyright I can't include it in the article. If someone wants to use it to draw a map to include in this article, let me know and I'll scan it in. Noel (talk) 18:22, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
The last sentence ("The recommendations were eventually rejected by both Zionists and Palestinian Arabs.")..is a bit unclear to me: is it this report (i.e. the Woodhead Commission) ..or was it the 1939 "Round Table" (= White Paper of 1939) that was "eventually rejected by both Zionists and Palestinian Arabs"? Huldra 03:08, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that the following summary from the UNSCOP report [1] is better, in particular it exposes the differences between the commissioners more clearly:
I removed these maps: A B C, because they are completely different from the original maps as reproduced in John Woodhead (1939). "The Report of the Palestine Partition Commission". International Affairs. 19 (2). Royal Institute of International Affairs: 171–193.. I'll attempt to bring a scan of Map C. Zero talk 13:08, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
I removed: "The Commission rejected Arab claims that the Jews had acquired the "best land" in Palestine: "That much of the land now in possession of Jews has become the best land is a truer statement...It was impossible not to be impressed when inspecting some of the bare rocky places where Jewish settlements have been or are in the course of being made. Such remarkable efforts may well disturb statistics. [The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Its History in Maps, Martin Gilbert, p. 29]" This appears in the "Note of reservations by Sir Alison Russell", not in the canonical report of the commission. Zero talk 07:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
The date was Nov 9, not Nov 8, for both publication of the report and presentation to parliament. Proof in Hansard. Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
"Russell argued that the plan was not in accord with the obligations to the Jews." - refers only to Plan C and is just one sentence from Russell's 14-page statement. Russell supported Plan B, like it said before and will again. Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
"it is only the Jewish contributions to tax revenue that have enabled Palestine to balance its budgets." - there is no such statement in the report. The source refers to the future economic feasibility of an Arab state: "This conclusion is, in our opinion, equally valid under plan C, plan B, and any other plan of partition which does not involve the inclusion in the Arab State of an area containing a large number of Jews, whose contributions to tax-revenue would alone enable that state to balance its budget." (page 196). Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
"tiny Jewish state surrounded by a much larger Arab state and a British zone" - one historian's pov can't be presented as a plain fact, especially when it is contrary to the Commission's pov. Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
"Plan A was the Peel plan" - needs qualification given that the maps are significantly different. Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
"According to the report: 'The customs revenue would ..." - this section is presented as if it is quotation from the report, but it is not. Actually it is composed of sentences paraphrased from different parts of the report, including parts of two different economic plans (called "Formula A and Formula B") that are presented as alternatives. It would be better to just quote the report's conclusions, which I will do. Zero talk 12:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
It's doesn't seem clear what Zero is objecting to. -- MichaelNetzer ( talk) 20:16, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
The report of the Woodhead Commission is a better source for what the report contains than random newspaper articles or other secondary sources. While we can rely on secondary sources for the background, overall impact, related issues, etc, when it comes to quoting from the report there is no excuse for quoting things that are not there. I'm not accusing Gilabrand of OR, only of using sub-optimal sources and in a few cases of removing more accurate cited material that was there before. She even deleted the bibliographic details of the report, so some of the citations now mean nothing. Overall her edits made the article considerably less accurate. I'm not embarrassed to be devoted to getting the facts right. Zero talk 22:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Out of JTA's summary of the plan of "economic federalism", only the last sentence is a quotation from the commission report. It is part of the last sentence of the Introduction (page 14). None of the rest appears, though fragments of it appear scattered around in different places. Looking again at JTA, they don't even claim to be quoting the report but only some unidentified summary of it. We shouldn't pretend to quote the report when we aren't, and we don't need to quote some unidentified intermediate source when the original is readily available. Zero talk 10:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I have been reading the Peel and Woodhead reports, and I am trying to better understand the economic difficulties mentioned here. Going by the Peel report, it seem like its a reference to Jewish and British Subvention. It appears that Jewish per capita revenue contributions were higher, which allowed better public services for the Arabs, so partition would mean that Arabs would no longer profit from the taxable capacity of the Jewish, and thus the Jewish state would have to pay the Arabs state?! Take half of the debt total debt, while the Arabs will get additional grants from British( source. This seems weird. Does anyone have any WP:RS that covers this topic.-- PLNR ( talk) 01:03, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
The Plan A/B/C and some other parts seem to be sourced to a Primary resource. Does anyone have a secondary source which covers those plans in details to make sure that all important segments are duly represented and that those section are not the result of original research.-- PLNR ( talk) 12:38, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
We can now sum up the position. The question whether partition is practicable involves considerations of two kinds : practical and political. The former concern chiefly finance and economics ; the administrative difficulties are great, but they cannot be called insuperable, if the will to find a solution is present. But the financial and economic difficulties, as described in this chapter, are of such a nature that we can find no possible way to overcome them within our terms of reference. Rather than report that we have failed to devise any practicable plan, we have proposed, in paragraph 506, a modification of partition which, while it with- holds fiscal autonomy from the Arab and Jewish States, seems to us, subject to certain reservations, to form a satisfactory basis of settlement, if His Majesty's Government are prepared to accept the very considerable financial liability involved.
There remain the political difficulties. We cannot ignore the possibility that one or both of the parties may refuse to operate partition under any conditions. It is not our duty, as a fact-finding Commission, to advise what should be done in that event. But there is still the possibility that both sides may be willing to accept a reasonable compromise. We cannot feel confident that this will happen, but we put forward the proposals in this chapter in the hope that they may form the basis of a settlement by negotiation. "
There are multiple issues involved here. I'll leave the "real agenda" issue to below and address the summary here. The problem with the text Ykantor added, and also with the claim that the text quoted above sums up the commission's conclusions is that both of them refer only to the commission's conclusions about Plan C. To see this you have to at least skim the report and not just look at a page or two. Plans A and B were rejected primarily on demographic grounds; this is stated on many pages. Because of these demographic reasons, the Galilee and the Jerusalem corridor were excluded from both the Jewish and Arab states. The effect was that the Arab State would exclude more than half the Arab population of Palestine and almost all of the high quality land owned by Arabs. It's hardly surprising that this left the Arab State with poor financial prospects. It is essential to note that these financial prospects were for the Arab State that the Woodhead Commission designed, after rejecting other plans (including Peel's) on other grounds. Ykantor wrote in 17 articles (a highly antisocial action), that the partition plan was rejected because there could not be a financially viable Arab State; that is simply a false summary. The text quoted above is not a summary of the whole document but a summary of the chapter, which is about Plan C as it says in Para 484. Woodhead himself emphasised that in his public summary (published as "The Report of the Palestine Partition Commission", International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1931-1939), Vol. 18, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1939), pp. 171-193): "the greater part of the Arab wealth of Palestine lies outside the Arab State, and that must be so under any plan of partitition which is based upon the inclusion in the Arab State of the fewest possible Jews and Jewish enterprises and on the creation of a mandated enclave for the Holy Places at Jerusalem and Bethlehem". Zero talk 04:44, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Regarding the "secret agenda" of the Woodhead commission: the opinion of Morris is not universally held and should not be stated as a fact. Alas Morris does not give a reference, but one reason it is a common belief is that a seminal paper on the subject by Galnoor (Territorial partition of Palestine —The 1937 decision, Political Geography Quarterly. Vol 10. 1991, 382–404.) cited an archival source for "However, the new Commission also received secret instructions according to which they were to conclude that partition was not possible." I added that to this article long ago. The problem is that Galnoor changed his mind later on. In a book he published on the same subject 6 years later (cited in the article) he gave the same archival source for a much weaker statement: "The commission was secretly told that, in accordance with the cabinet's decision, it was within the commission's authority to recommend that "no workable scheme could be produced."". That could have come with an unwritten "wink, wink" as an instruction to kill the plan, but it makes perfect innocent sense as well since the formal Terms of Reference were to recommend how to implement partition and don't explicitly give the option of recommending against. Galnoor is a specialist on this subject and cited sources, unlike Morris who isn't and didn't, so I don't think Morris should appear as the bringer of unattributed facts that others more qualified don't consider facts. Zero talk 05:14, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
- exorbitant interest rates PAYED TO MONEY LENDERS,
- lot of plots were owned by a group of farmers, so every year the farmer got another plot and had no incentive to invest in manure and other means.
:- Payments to local notables etc.
- The poor farmer wheat seasonal product was around 1 quarter of the Egyptian farmer. There was a major period of decline in the rural economy commenced in the late 1920s and lasted until 1939 because of drought,locust, field mice etc. The local Arab newspapers of the period wrote about these problems. No wonder they could not pay taxes. It seems that the mandate government did not care about the poor fellahin. Ykantor ( talk) 19:13, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
-Concerning the secret agenda, it seems that Galnur supports Morris view. I added to the article a quote of Galnur.
- Zero: "The text quoted above is not a summary of the whole document but a summary of the chapter, which is about Plan C". Not true. the text of the Conclusion passage (p. 246) is a summary of the last chapter of the report's body, which is called "CHAPTER XXII.—SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION"(p. 232). It is clear that this chapter, and especially its' last passage - conclusions, should be the source for the Wikipedia article. However, if you wish to elaborate on plans A,B, based on the report's previous chapters, I have no objections.
- Zero: "the partition plan was rejected because there could not be a financially viable Arab State; that is simply a false summary.". Not true. This text is a quote of the report, so it cannot be false. You might have said that you wish to add a background, though.
-E Zero: "It is essential to note that these financial prospects were for the Arab State that the Woodhead Commission designed, after rejecting other plans (including Peel's) on other grounds.". Not true. the statement is clear: "it was impossible, whatever boundaries we might recommend, to set up an Arab State which should be self-supporting".
- Why such a low income of the proposed Arab state? If the article will explain it, it should include Zero's explanation together with the report's body reasons. i.e.
Ykantor, I suggested before that you read para 484; here it is for your convenience (my emphasis):
So the Chapter itself says it is about Plan C. Then the chapter has 7 sections, each considering one aspect of Plan C, saying so explicitly multiple times and referring for its data back to the earlier chapters about Plan C. The words you quote "we found that it was impossible, whatever boundaries we might recommend" are prefixed by "In chapter XVIII", which is a detailed economic analysis of Plan C. The figures like 610,000 quoted just below come from the tables in chapter XVIII about Plan C. Compare the text in this paragraph with that in Para 383 of Chapter XVIII:
It is almost verbatim, the same numbers, proving beyond doubt that this paragraph is about Plan C. Zero talk 09:57, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
Ykantor, You claim to have found proof that Galnoor agrees with Morris, but the source you brought shows that Galnoor does not agree with Morris. First, Galnoor does not say that the Cabinet voted to reject partition; he says they voted to "delay all immediate action for more than a year and meanwhile to appoint another commission to examine the plan and submit its opinion". It's completely different. Only "in retrospect" does Galnoor consider that this decision was the turning point against partition. Then regarding the secret advice to Woodhead, Galnoor does not say that Woodhead was instructed to kill partition. He was told that the committee was permitted to recommend against partition. Again, it is completely different. Galnoor summarises "That is to say, the government told the commission that it was prepared to accept a recommendation to retract the partition recommendations of the Peel commission". Again, "prepared to accept" is utterly different from instructing the commission to find against partition, and even weaker than saying that the government would prefer or like such a decision. Galnoor simply does not agree with Morris' black and white sentence. Zero talk 10:18, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
Having now spent more than an hour reading the minutes of the Cabinet meeting (available from the National Archives), I think that even Galnoor's description is slightly overstated. The background is a document (CAB 24/273/14 also called CP 289 (37)) from one week earlier which gives a draft "Despatch to Acting High Commissioner for Palestine" from the Secretary of State for the Colonies. That Despatch states that the policy of the British Government is to accept the Peel Commission's recommendations that "scheme of tripartite division is the best and most hopeful solution of the problem". It then states terms for a new commission to advise on the best way to implement that policy (i.e. not to investigate whether partition should or should not be carried out). In the meeting of Dec 8 referred to by Galnoor (CAB 46 (37) also called CAB 23/90A/8), various people argued for and against the wording of the Despatch. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs noted that "The Terms of Reference would not enable the Commission to hear opinions to the effect that partition was unworkable, or to say so themselves." Finally they passed a resolution to ask for a revised Despatch, details to be decided on consultation with named people. Paragraph (g) says:
There was absolutely no decision to reject partition at this meeting. Regarding the delay mentioned by Galnoor, there was no decision to create a delay but only a realisation that the process would take a long time. It says that the new commission would take "many months" since hydrographic and other surveys had to be completed first, and even after a plan had been recommended it would have to be brought to the Parliament and the League of Nations. Thus the resolution at (f) says
In other words, it is quite wrong to state that the Cabinet rejected partition at this meeting. They did not. Nor did they decide to ask Woodhead to bury the partition plan. Zero talk 11:54, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
These is the differences between Zero and myself:
title | Zero | ykantor |
The present text (see also note A,B,C,D above) | Support; Have not referred yet to claims of mistaken text. | Oppose. Includes mistakes (see note A,B,C,D above) |
My edit compared to the previous text | Zero removed my edit while claiming: removed massive distortion | Support: The text is a quote of the relevant chapter, so it can not be wrong. My edit replaced a clearly wrong text, hence it is an improvement. |
Ykantor (past) version-1 | Oppose: Your text tries to blame the whole failure on the Arab economy, it is highly misleading and | " . see above |
Ykantor (past) version-2 | Oppose: not a correct summary of Woodhead's case | Support: It is correct. It is agreed to add whatever is supposedly missing, |
What is Chapter XXII about? | Chapter itself says it is about Plan C | This last chapter's title speaks for itself: "CHAPTER XXII.—SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION "(p. 232). The chapter apparently does not mention plans A,B because the commission decided that it should not be in the conclusions. Moreover, it is agreed to add this info to the article. |
My editing of multiple articles | Oppose: Ykantor wrote in 17 articles (a highly antisocial action) | Support: My edit improved those articles, hence it is a positive act. |
"the partition plan was rejected because there could not be a financially viable Arab State;" | 'that is simply a false summary.". | This is not written in my text. My text is a direct quote that the report text, and says that the commission propose a partition plan which is satisfactory if the U.K will pay "the very considerable financial"... (annual payment to the Arab state). |
If you do not agree with the table presentation of your views, I'll appreciate if you modify it accordingly.
Will you cooperate if I'll refer the discussion to wp:drn? Ykantor ( talk) 20:26, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
-replaced a mistaken text 1: "It published its conclusions on November 9, 1938, ultimately rejecting partition as unfeasible on administrative and financial grounds."
- and mistaken text 2: "concluded that no plan of partition could be evolved within the terms of reference which would, in the view of the members of the Commission, offer much hope of success, for eventual establishment of self-supporting Arab and Jewish states"
- with the correct text: "and found that "it was impossible, whatever boundaries we might recommend, to set up an Arab State which should be self-supporting". It proposed "a modification of partition which, ...seems, subject to certain reservations, to form a satisfactory basis of settlement", if the U.K is prepared to provide a "sufficient assistance to enable the Arab State to balance its budget".
- Hence my edit clearly improved the article.
- As to your comment: "to mention that the WC rejected the Peel plan outright and why", please go ahead. As said previously, if in your opinion a text from the report body is sufficiently important than it could be added to the conclusions. Ykantor ( talk) 17:11, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
@ Zero0000: : The report's quote which you added today says:"Woodhead identified two reasons for the financial infeasibility of an Arab state....the greater part of the Arab wealth lay in the places that would become part of the Jewish state due to their large Jewish populations".
-An earlier quote in the same section says: "It is not possible, under our terms of reference, to recommend boundaries which will afford a reasonable prospect of the eventual establishment of a self-supporting Arab State. This conclusion is, in our opinion, equally valid under plan C, plan B, and any other plan of partition which does not involve the inclusion in the Arab State of an area containing a large number of Jews, whose contributions to tax-revenue would alone enable that state to balance its budget".
-At a first glance, those 2 quotes seem to contradict each other. Will it be possible for you to elaborate on this point? Ykantor ( talk) 19:11, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
References
" It found that "it is not possible, under our terms of reference, to recommend boundaries which will afford a reasonable prospect of the eventual establishment of a self-supporting Arab State. This conclusion is, in our opinion, equally valid under plan C, plan B, and any other plan of partition which does not involve the inclusion in the Arab State of an area containing a large number of Jews, whose contributions to tax-revenue would alone enable that state to balance its budget".
if the Arab rural population continues to increase at its present rate, the demand for such supplementary employment, and even the pressure to leave the land and seek for whole-time employment in the towns, will be intensified—quite apart from any further acquisition of land by the Jews, (iii) And thirdly, that since such employment can only be provided by capital, and, with few exceptions, capital is only likely to be invested in Palestine by Jews, the future for the Arab population is already menacing—unless Jewish immigration and Jewish imports of capital are allowed to continue.
" It is indeed an ironic commentary on the working of the Mandate, and perhaps on the science of government, that this result, which so far from encouraging has almost certainly hindered close settlement by Jews on the land, could scarcely have been brought about except through the appropriation of tax-revenue contributed by the Jews".
The Arabs would be no better off with a larger population than to-day on the same amount of land, unless they learn to cultivate their land more intensively and unless in addition they can find supplementary employment in the towns. And neither of these two things can be brought about without the assistance of Jewish taxable capacity and Jewish capital. The alternative possibility of assistance by the United Kingdom Government may, we feel sure, be ruled out, for we cannot imagine that, if Jewish immigration were to be completely closed down in Palestine, His Majesty's Government would be willing to provide funds from the British taxpayer's pocket for the sake of enabling a larger Arab population to support itself in Palestine.
" there would be much to be said for a pause or standstill of several years during which no further acquisition by the Jews of agricultural land whatever …would be permitted outside the Jewish State. This standstill would give time for the present bitterness of feeling between the two races to die down…But if there is to be no assurance of further Jewish agricultural settlement beyond what can be done on the land which the Jews already possess, it cannot be expected that His Majesty's Government will be willing to spend the United Kingdom taxpayer's money on the development of the land for the sole benefit of the Arabs ; the Jews obviously will not do s o ; and it is quite certain that the revenues of the Mandated Territory alone will not be adequate for the purpose".
"Of the total Arab cultivable land about 2*4 per cent, consists of citrus and banana plantations".
" The following table gives the estimated revenue for 1938/39" (palestine mandate).
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