Twentieth Congress - Zurich, 1937

Following the outbreak of the Arab Revolt in Palestine during the Spring of 1936, the British Government dispatched a Royal Commission to investigate a possible solution to the Arab-Zionist conflict. The central recommendation of the Peel Commission (known after its chairperson) was the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Congress was called upon to determine the position of the Zionist movement towards this scheme.

The crisis that emerged within the movement was comparable to that which had rocked the organization during the days of the so-called Uganda controversy. Zionist factions were divided not only between but also among themselves. For example:

• within Mapai (Labor) Ben-Gurion supported the proposal whilst Berl Katznelson and Yitshak Tabenkin opposed it.
• The opposition led by Menachem Ussishkin (the Revisionists had seceded from the WZO), argued that the proposed Jewish State was too small to absorb the potential Jewish immigration, could not be defended from Arab attack and excluded Zion (Jerusalem).
• Against them, Weizmann and Ben-Gurion argued that a Jewish State afforded free immigration and sovereignty. In these uncertain times they doubted that the British would improve upon their offer. With European Jewry in crisis an immediate solution was necessary. If the Jewish State were to be attacked, Ben Gurion argued, the Zionist movement would be within its rights to claim an adjustment to its borders.

In the event, the Congress decided to reject the specific borders recommended by the Peel Commission but empowered its executive to negotiate a more favorable plan for a Jewish State in Palestine.

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