The Palestine Problem in the Context of Colonial Policy on the Eve of the Second World War

Abstract

By the end of 1938, the British Government had abandoned partition as a possible solution to the problem of Palestine. That some sort of solution was necessary had been made clear by the Peel Commission in 1937, by the continuing Arab revolt in Palestine, and by the growing anxiety of Britain’s strategic planners for the security of British military bases and diplomatic interests in the Arab world. The changing international situation since the mid-1930s had gradually transformed the context of British policy throughout the Middle East. British support for the creation of a Jewish National Home, and the lofty idealism which had inspired its colonial policy in Palestine gave way to a new calculus of interests and influence in which the Jewish community in Palestine — or so it was believed in London — had nothing to offer.