The Struggle for Independence 157
who officially claim nothing more than a "National Home'5, but in
reality will be satisfied with nothing less thana "Jewish State".' The
Zionists promptly countercharged that, on account of the sym-
pathy of some members of the military administration for the
Arabs, there had been dilatoriness in suppressing the outbreak. The
Lloyd George government abolished the military administration
and replaced it by a civil one, with the Mandate as its charter.
It is illuminating that in the Mandate the only reference to the
predominantly Arabic character of the population was still merely
indirect, in the article which recognized Arabic as one of the three
official languages.1 The first High Commissioner Sir Herbert
Samuel wras, if not himself a Zionist, very sympathetically -
disposed to Zionism as he then understood it2 It must be said,
however, that during his tenure of office he was conspicuously im-
partial, to the point of being strongly criticized by extreme Zionists
for being pro-Arab. In 1921 he was violently denounced by the
Zionist Congress for having recommended immigration 'within
the limits fixed by the numbers and interests of the present popu-
lation' to develop the country 'to the advantage of all its inhabi-
tants*.3 Another and more serious outbreak of Arab violence in
1921, arising out of a May-Day riot between two Jewish labour
factions, wras followed by the first of the many Inquiry Commis-
sions which have visited Palestine. This Haycraft Commission
declared that the Zionist Organization had 'desired to ignore the
Arabs as a factor to be taken into serious consideration, or else has
combated their interests to the advantage of the Jews', and that it
had 'exercised an exacerbating rather than a conciliatory influence
of the Arab population of Palestine, and has thus been a contribu-
tory cause of the disturbances'. In reply to Zionist arguments that
Arab antagonism was directed more against British rule than
against themselves, and had been artificially stimulated among the
uneducated mass of the Arab population by the effendis, it de-
clared that 'feeling against the Jews was too genuine, too wide-
spread, and too intense to be accounted for in the above superficial
1Elsewhere the Arabs were described as 'the existing non-Jewish communities'
(in the Preamble, quoting the Balfour Declaration); "the inhabitants of Palestine,
irrespective of race and religion" (Art. 2); 'other sections of the population'
(Art. 6).
2 Hyamson, op. cit., 131.
3 Storrs comments, 'I cannot conceive that any Gentile High Commissioner
could have weathered the storms of Zionist public opinion for five years,'
(op. cit., 358, 392).