The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840-1947

Boundary commissions as tools to safeguard British interests at the end of empire

“…22 (The merits and demerits of this proposal are too complex to discuss here, but Gideon Biger provides a detailed geographical analysis of this and later plans.) 23 The Peel Commission was not originally conceived as a boundary commission, but its members interpreted their broad terms of reference as allowing them to propose territorial division as the only solution to the immediate crisis of the Arab uprising, which emerged from the underlying problem of conflicting Arab and Zionist aspirations. Colonial Office interests led it to accept Peel's proposal.…”

Historical Geography and International Boundaries

“…The mandate powers never considered the initial distribution of the inhabitants of the area, thus creating independent states, none of which had its unique 'old history'. By this process, which took place in the 1920s, the states of Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan (then called Transjordan) and Palestine (Biger 2004) were created 'out of the blue'. This process led to the creation of the Syrian, the Lebanese, the Jordanian, the Palestinian and the Iraqi nations, which had never existed, as such, before and which were created by the boundaries imposed on the Middle East by the Europeans.…”

“…Boundaries could also be located according to physical features that later changed their location. Such was the case with the British Palestine (now partly Israel) -Syria boundary line, which runs 10 m east of the water level of the Sea of Galilee (Biger 2004). In 1923, when the boundary was established, the water level was 208 m below sea level.…”

Underground – Archaeological Research in the West Bank, 1948–1967: Management, Complexity, and Israeli Involvement

“…The various conclusions of these bodies included a call to partition Palestine, while leaving certain zones subject to different levels of international administration (Biger 2004). The commissions had little impact on the selection of the archaeological research sites of members of the Yishuv, which were being conducted throughout Palestine.…”