The four-man Palestine Partition Commission sailed for Jerusalem today to begin its task of drawing up a concrete plan for the proposed three-way partition of the Holy Land into independent Jewish and Arab states and a British-mandated corridor.
The commission, chairman John Woodhead declared on leaving, expects to be gone from two to three months, depending on the time needed to complete its inquiries. He said the first two or three weeks in Palestine would be spent in touring the country to get acquainted with conditions there, following which the commissioners would “settle down to hearing the views of interested people.” Sir John refused to make a statement as to the commission’s prospects.
Commenting on the commission’s departure, the Times said in an editorial that there had been too much delay in carrying out the recommendations of the Palestine Royal Commission. Critics of partition, the editorial declared, had produced no better solution. Asserting that the hope of an Arab-Zionist roundtable conference had proved a sentimental delusion, the newspaper expressed the hope that the successful issue of the Anglo-Italian treaty and the expected French-Italian agreement would check the activities of the exiled ex-Mufti of Jerusalem.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
