Page:Report of the Commission on the Palestine Disturbances of August 1929 cmd 3530.djvu/7

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of the time which we spent on these visits was occupied by matters not directly concerned with our enquiry, we feel that the knowledge of the problems of Palestine which we obtained from contact with its people has been of the greatest value to us in the preparation of our report.

CHAPTER II. DESCRIPTIVE—GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.

Palestine is bounded on the north by Syria, which is ad- ministered under a mandate entrusted to the President of the French Republic, on the east by Trans-Jordan which also is mandated territory where an independent Government under His Highness the Emir Abdullah has recently been established, on the south-west by the Peninsula of Sinai, which forms part of Egypt, and on the west by the Mediterranean. To the south- east, separated from Palestine by only a narrow strip of Trans- Jordan territory, lies the independent Arab State of Nejd. A map of Palestine is attached to this report.

Viewed in the light of the history of at least the last six cen- turies, Palestine is an artificial conception. Under the Ottoman regime it formed part only of an administrative unit, the re- mainder of which consisted of areas now coming within the juris- diction of the Governments of other neighbouring mandated territories. Its frontiers, too, are largely artificial. In many parts they are frequented by nomad tribes who by inter- governmental agreement are allowed unhindered passage across these frontiers for the purpose of exercising rights of grazing which they have acquired by long usage. In Turkish times the members of all these tribes were Ottoman subjects; to-day some are technically of Palestinian, some of Trans-Jordanian, and some of Syrian nationality, but it is at least doubtful whether they themselves recognize distinctions of this character.

Palestine is a small country. Its average length from north to south is about 160 miles and its extreme width from east to west is less than 70 miles. Its area is less than 10,000 square miles. In size it is therefore comparable to Wales or Belgium. Though small in area Palestine has a variety of geographical. detail, of soil and of climate wider than that of countries many times its size. In the south and south-west there are wide expanses of sand dunes and desert. The remainder of the country falls naturally into three longitudinal strips—the maritime plain, the mountainous regions, and the Jordan Valley.

Along the greater part of the western seaboard lies a stretch of fertile plain of sand and sandy loam soil. In the south this plain has an average width of about 20 miles, but it gradually narrows to the north until at Mount Carmel, near Haifa, the