King-Crane Commission: commission appointed at the request of US president Woodrow Wilson during the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to determine the attitudes of the people of Syria and Palestine toward post-World War I settlement of their territories. The commission was headed by Henry C. King, President of Oberlin College (Ohio) and Charles R. Crane, a Chicago businessman. They toured Syria and Palestine in June and July 1919 and found out that the vast majority of Arabs demanded a totally independent Syria, free of any foreign domination, and that 72 percent opposed plans to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The commission thus recommended serious modifications of Jewish immigration programs in Palestine.