King-Crane Public Opinion Survey
Read the below findings from the August 1919 American-led “King-Crane” public opinion survey of Palestinians, and discuss this query with your small group: Which King-Crane finding do you find most revealing, and why?
- “The people of the area declared themselves almost unanimously for United Syria [including Palestine], for its complete independence, and against any help from France, and against the Zionist program.”
- “The fact that the Arabic-speaking portion of the Turkish Empire has been the birthplace of the three great religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and that Palestine contains places sacred to all three, makes inevitably a center of interest and concern for the whole civilized world. No solution which is merely local or has only a single people in mind can avail.”
- “No British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than 50,000 soldiers would be required even to initiate the program. That of itself is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist program, on the part of the non-Jewish populations of Palestine and Syria.”
- “Decisions, requiring armies to carry out, are sometimes necessary, but they are surely not gratuitously to be taken in the interests of a serious injustice. For the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a ‘right’ to Palestine, based on an occupation of 2,000 years ago, can hardly be seriously considered.”
- “if the American government decided to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, they are committing the American people to the use of force in that area, since only by force can a Jewish state in Palestine be established or maintained.”
For more info, see full King-Crane Report.