ABSTRACT
Events preceding the Second World War made the work of the Zionist movement more urgent. The Arab Revolt of 1936-39 heightened the importance of establishing security for Jewish settlements in Palestine. The Peel Commission’s suggestion in 1937 to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, although rejected by 1938, made the Zionist Organization rethink its land-purchase and its land settlement priorities. If partition was going to be the long-term solution to the Palestine problem, Zionists saw the need to expand the Jewish presence into most regions of Palestine with the hope of influencing (to the Jews’ advantage) the borders of the future Jewish state and to create territorial contiguity between existing settlements. Finally, events in Germany between 1933 (when Hitler seized power) and 1935 (the passing of the Nuremberg Laws) boded ill for German Jewry. Germany’s incipient expansionist policy in 1938-39, apparently perceived at the time as being benign, raised questions about the welfare of Jews living in other areas of eastern Europe as well. The influx of German Jews into Palestine (a prominent part of the Fifth Aliyah of 1929-39) increased the Zionists’ view of Palestine as an important refuge. All these events caused the Zionists to augment their imperative for land acquisition, land development, and land settlement.
