A proposal for the partition of Palestine, presented by David Ben-Gurion, Chairman of the Jewish Executive, to the Mapai Party Center, in February 1937. Ben-Gurion envisioned a Jewish state being established in the coastal plains and valleys, as well as the Negev, with Bethlehem and Jerusalem under British control and the rest of Palestine constituting an Arab state. The Arab-controlled districts of Gaza and Acre would remain open for Jewish settlement. Ben-Gurion offered four principles on which the proposed territorial settlement is based: the distribution of the Jewish and Arab populations in Palestine; the possibility of mass Jewish immigration in the future; economic considerations, such as retaining the Dead Sea and Haifa Port for the Jewish state; and the need for the Jewish state to have a border with Lebanon, with its Christians constituting another minority in the Muslim-majority Middle East.