<P> Early in the deliberations toward British civilian administration, two fundamental decisions were taken, which bear upon the status of the Jews as a nation; the first was the recognition of Hebrew as an official language, along with English and Arabic, and the second concerned the Hebrew name of the country . </P> <P> In 1920, the Jewish members of the first High Commissioner's advisory council objected to the Hebrew transliteration of the word "Palestine" פלשתינה (Palestina) on the ground that the traditional name was ארץ ישראל (Eretz Yisrael), but the Arab members would not agree to this designation, which in their view, had political significance . The High Commissioner Herbert Samuel, himself a Zionist, decided that the Hebrew transliteration should be used, followed always by the two initial letters of "Eretz Yisrael," א ״ י Aleph - Yod: </P> <P> He was aware that there was no other name in the Hebrew language for this land except' Eretz - Israel' . At the same time he thought that if' Eretz - Israel' only were used, it might not be regarded by the outside world as a correct rendering of the word' Palestine', and in the case of passports or certificates of nationality, it might perhaps give rise to passports or certificates of nationality, it might perhaps give rise to difficulties, so it was decided to print' Palestine' in Hebrew letters and to add after it the letters' Aleph' ' Yod', which constitute a recognised abbreviation of the Hebrew name . His Excellency still thought that this was a good compromise . Dr. Salem wanted to omit' Aleph' ' Yod' and Mr. Yellin wanted to omit' Palestine' . The right solution would be to retain both ."--Minutes of the meeting on November 9, 1920 . </P> <P> The compromise was later noted as among Arab grievances before the League's Permanent Mandate Commission . During the Mandate, the name Eretz Yisrael (abbreviated א ״ י Aleph - Yod), was part of the official name for the territory, when written in Hebrew . These official names for Palestine were minted on the Mandate coins and early stamps (pictured) in English, Hebrew "(פלשתינה (א ״ י" (Palestina E "Y) and Arabic "(فلسطين"). Consequently, in 20th century political usage, the term "Land of Israel" usually denotes only those parts of the land which came under the British mandate . </P>

The distribution of the land east of the jordan had been made by