Shaw Commission

A British commission of inquiry into a 1929 disturbance in Palestine.

A commission of inquiry, led by Sir Walter Shaw, was sent to Palestine by the British government to investigate the August 1929 Western Wall Disturbances, which caused the deaths of 249 Jews and Arabs. The commission's report, issued in March 1930, stated that the fundamental cause of the political violence was "the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future." The Palestinians feared that by "Jewish immigration and land purchases they may be deprived of their livelihood and placed under the economic domination of the Jews." The commission's report called for an explicit policy regulating land and immigration that would have, in effect, curtailed the Zionist program in Palestine. The British government, however, postponed consideration of any change in policy until after another commission, which it appointed in May 1930 under Sir John Hope-Simpson, had studied land settlement, immigration, and development.

Bibliography

Palestine Government. A Survey of Palestine for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. 2 vols. Jerusalem, 1946. Reprint, Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1991.

Smith, Charles D. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 4th edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001.

— PHILIP MATTAR