ABSTRACT
The cadastral reform in Palestine coincided with a stormy and difficult period in the relations between the Arab and Jewish populations, as a result of which British policy towards the Zionist idea changed. Lord Plumer, who instilled a sense of quiet and stability in the country, concluded his period in office, and in the autumn of 1928 John Chancellor was appointed High Commissioner. At that time the tension between Jews and Arabs turned into open, violent conflict on religious, demographic, and economic grounds, which set in motion a chain of events: the Western Wall incident in 1928; the bloody disturbances of 1929 and the (Walter) Shaw Commission sent to inquire into the causes in September of that year; the mission of inquiry headed by John Hope-Simpson in May 1930; the White Paper of the Ramsay MacDonald Government in October 1930 that attacked the principles of Zionism and was an outright departure from some of the main Articles of the Mandate; the resignation of Chaim Weizmann from the presidency of the Zionist Executive and from the Jewish Agency, which had been established one year previously with British support; the reversal of MacDonald’s policy in a parliamentary message to Weizmann in February 1931; the establishment of a special Government Development Department according to Hope-Simpson’s recommendations, headed by Lewis French, in order to advance development programmes mainly in the Arab sector; and the appointment of Sir Arthur Wauchope as the new High Commissioner for Palestine in October 1931.
