ANALYSIS OF
BRITISH POLICY
IN PALESTINE
TOWARD A JEWISH COMMONWEALTH • UNIT I
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HADASSAH. THE WOMEN'S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA. INC.
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THE AUTHOR
Abraham Tulin is a prominent New York attorney whose
intimate connection with the Zionist movement predates the
issuance of the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Since then he
has been a close student of British Palestine policy. He has
also taken an active interest in the economic upbuilding of
Palestine, having acted as attorney for both Pincus Rutenberg
and M. Novemeysky in the matter of the concessions which
they respectively obtained for the hydro-electric development
of the River Jordan and the exploitation of the mineral de-
posits of the Dead Sea. Mr. Tulin visited Palestine and stud-
ied its political and economic conditions in 1926.
During the first World War Mr. Tulin served as a Captain
of Infantry in the United States Army in France. After the
Armistice he served as an assistant to Herbert Hoover in the
American Relief Administration and the Supreme Economic
Council of the Peace Conference at Paris, going on a mission
for Mr. Hoover to southern Russia and Armenia in the first
half of the year 1919. From 1929 to 1931 Mr. Tulin was a
member of the Administration of the Zionist Organization of
America. He has also attended and participated in a number
of international Zionist Conferences and Congresses in
Europe from 1919 to 1933.
THE NEAR EAST
ANALYSIS OF
BRITISH POLICY
IN PALESTINE
IVE of&cial documents mark the course of the development of
Great Britain's Palestine policy since 1917. These are:
The Balfour Declaration of the British wartime Government of 1917.
The Mandate under which Great Britain was entrusted with the
administration of Palestine by the Supreme Council of the Allied and
Associated Powers in 1920.
The Churchill White Paper of 1922.
The Passfield White Paper of 1930.
The MacDonald White Paper of 1939.
The last three documents — the so-called White Papers — were suc-
cessive official interpretations by the British Government of the Balfour
Declaration and the Mandate, and declarations ot how it proposed to
implement them thereafter. They are called the "Churchill" or the
"Passfield" or the "MacDonald" White Paper, as the case may be,
after the name of the Colonial Secretary at the time each of them was
issued.
In the following pages these five documents are summarized and
discussed in the order in which they were issued.
5
I
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
The British promise to the Jewish people first took official and con-
crete form in the famous Balfour Declaration which the British Gov-
ernment issued on November 2, 1917, after it had been approved by
President Wilson on behalf of the Government of the United States.
On February 14 and May 9, 1918, respectively, this Declaration was
further publicly endorsed by the French and the Italian governments.
Later, when the League of Nations was organized, it was adopted as
the official policy of all the fifty-two member nations of the League. It
was addressed to Lord Rothschild, then president of the English Zion-
ist Federation, and reads as follows (author's italics) :
"Foreign Office,
November 2, 1917.
"Dear Lord Rothschild,
"I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of His
Majesty's Government the following declaration of sympathy with
Jewish Zionist aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved
by the Cabinet:
" 'His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in
Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their
best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being
clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice
the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any
other country.'
"I should be grateful if you would bring this Declaration to the
knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
"Yours sincerely,
(signed) Arthur James Balfour."
The background of this Declaration furnishes a sure guide to the
meaning of its crucial terms, which are above italicized. Thus, "fewish
Zionist aspirations" were universally known to be the age old hope
and prayer of the Jews the world over for the ultimate return of the
exiles to the "Land of Israel" (Palestine). These aspirations were
formulated at the first Zionist Congress at Basle in 1897, under the
leadership of Theodor Herzl, as a concrete aim of practical politics in
these words:
"Zionism aims to create a publicly secured, legally assured home for the
Jewish people in Palestine."
6
It was at the same Congress that the Zionist Organization, com-
posed of national Zionist Federations, was established with the object
of bringing about the practical achievement of the Zionist aim thus
formulated; and it was to the president of the English Zionist Federa-
tion, a component of the "World Zionist Organization, that the Balfour
Declaration was significantly addressed.
The meaning of the word "Palestine" in that Declaration was like-
wise well known and understood by all concerned. It meant Palestine
within its ancient historic boundaries on both sides of the River Jordan.
It is unnecessary to review the mass of evidence in support of this con-
tention, in view of the unqualified statement on this subject by the
Royal Commission of the British Government itself (the Peel Com-
mission) which thoroughly investigated and reported on this and other
matters relating to Palestine in 1937. Said the Royal Commission
(Report, p. 38) :
"The field in which the Jewish National Home was to be established
was understood, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, to be the
whole of historic Palestine, and the Zionists were seriously disap-
pointed when Trans- Jordan was (later) cut away from that field . . . "
So also the words "the Jewish people" which were used in the
Declaration were concededly intended to mean not merely the handful
of some fifty odd thousand Jews who were at the time living in Pales-
tine, but the Jews throughout the world, who were thus officially recog-
nized as "a people."
Finally, the pregnant and much discussed phrase ""the establish-
ment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" was un-
questionably intended and understood to mean by all concerned that
Palestine would ultimately become a "Jewish Commonwealth" or a
"Jewish State" if only Jews came and settled there in sufficient num-
bers. The promise "to facilitate the achievement of this object" could
only mean, of course, that at the least opportunities to come and settle
in Palestine would be freely accorded to Jews for this purpose.
This is the conclusion of the Royal Commission itself, which is
overwhelmingly supported by the evidence which the Commission
quotes and refers to on pages 24 and 25 of its official Report. Thus,
Mr. Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the Government which issued
7
the Declaration, testified before the Commission as follows (author's
italics) :
"The idea was, and this was the interpretation put upon it (the
Declaration) at the time, that a Jewish State was not to be set up
immediately by the Peace Treaty without reference to the wishes of the
majority of the inhabitants. On the other hand, was contemplated
that when the time arrived for according representative institutions to
Palestine, if the Jews had meanwhile responded to the opportunity
afforded them by the idea of a national home and had become a defi-
nite majority of the inhabitants, then Palestine would thus become a
Jewish Commonwealth."
General Smuts, who was a m.ember of the Lloyd George Govern-
ment and Imperial British War Cabinet, publicly foretold on Novem-
ber 3, 1919, an increasing stream of Jewish immigration into Palestine
and "in generations to come a great J etuis h State rising there once
more".
So also, as stated by the Royal Commission in its report (p. 25),
"Lord Robert Cecil in 1917, Sir Herbert Samuel in 1919, and Mr.
Winston Churchill in 1920 (all members of the Lloyd George Gov-
ernment) spoke or wrote in terms that could only mean that they con-
templated the eventual establishment of a Jewish State. Leading British
newspapers were equally explicit in their comments on the Declara-
tion".
Finally, President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, who
had a significant part in the framing and issuance of the Declaration
by the British Government, stated on March 3, I919,
"That the Allied Nations, with the fullest concurrence of our own
(the American) Government and people, are agreed that in Palestine
shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth."*
It is thus clear that the Balfour Declaration meant and was in-
tended and understood to mean that the British Government would use
its best endeavors to facilitate the establishment in Palestine, within
its historic boundaries on both sides of the Jordan, of a national home
for the Jewish people by at least giving Jews the opportunity to immi-
grate into Palestine and establish themselves in the country in ever
increasing numbers, and that if and when they should become a ma-
*The above should be conclusive evidence that the explicit demand of the Biltmore Conference
of American Zionists in May, 1942, for the establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine
after the present war, was not a new Zionist objective, but a demand for the performance of the
Balfour Declaration and the Mandate.
8
jority of the population, Palestine within its historic boundaries would
become a Jewish State or Jewish Commonwealth.
The reservations which followed this promise as to the safeguard-
ing of the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities
in Palestine and the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any
other country are plain enough in meaning and detract nothing from
the promise. It should be noted that it was only the civil and religious
rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine which were to
be safeguarded. The word "political" was strikingly omitted in this
connection, although it was used in the very next line of the Declara-
tion, which refers to safeguarding the "rights and political status" en-
joyed by Jews in other countries. This conspicuous fact, in a document
of which the exact phrasing and wording were carefully pondered and
considered over a period of more than six months by both the British
and the American governments before it was issued, is of the utmost
significance.
II
THE MANDATE
How the promise of the Balfour Declaration was to be imple-
mented was specified in the Mandate allotted to Great Britain by the
Supreme Council of the Allied Nations at San Remo on April 25, 1920,
and then accepted by Great Britain, for the express purpose of "putting
it {the Declaration) into effect" (see Report, Royal Commission,
pp. 30-31). As regards this Mandate, which was subsequently approved
by the Council of the League of Nations, it should first of all be noted
that the Government of the United States claimed and was accorded
the right to pass, and in fact did pass, upon its terms before they were
finally fixed, and that the United States in that connection expressly
gave up certain economic rights which it had in Palestine, including
what is now Trans-Jordan, in the interests of the Jewish national home
to be established there. This was later, in 1924, confirmed by a treaty
between the United States and Great Britain which quotes the Palestine
Mandate, as approved by the United States, in full, and contains the
significant provision that nothing in the treaty shall be affected by any
modification which may later be made in the terms of the Mandate
9
unless such modification shall have been first assented to by the United
States.
The Preamble to the Mandate states that the Principal Allied
Powers have agreed, "for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions
of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations," to entrust the
administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be fixed by
them,* to his Britannic Majesty as Mandatory, and then continues as
follows :
"Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the
Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration
originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His
Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it
being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might
prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish com-
munities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews
in any other country; and
"Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connec-
tion of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for recon-
stituting their national home in that country" . . .
The Preamble thus clearly sets forth the principal object for which
the administration of Palestine was entrusted to Great Britain, namely,
the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish peo-
ple because of the historical connection of that people with Palestine
and of other "grounds for reconstituting their national home in that
country." The Mandate then proceeds to specify the following explicit
duties and obligations of the Mandatory in order to assure the achieve-
ment of this object:
"Article 2.
"The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under
such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure
the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the
preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also
for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of
Palestine, irrespective of race and religion."
"Article 4.
"An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognized as a public body
for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration
of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect
the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the
Jewish population in Palestine, and,' subject always to the control of
♦These boundaries were fixed a few months later, in December, 1920, so as to include Trans-
Jordan, as shown below.
10
the Administration, to assist and take part in the development of the
country.
"The Zionist organization, so long as its organization and constitution
are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be recognized
as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic
Majesty's Government to secure the co-operation of all Jews who are
willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home."
"Article 6.
"The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and
position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall
facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall en-
courage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article
4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste
lands not required for public purposes."
"Article 7.
"The Administration of Palestine shall be responsible for enacting
a nationality law. There shall be included in this law provisions framed
so as to facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who
take up their permanent residence in Palestine."
"Article 11.
"The Administration of Palestine shall take all necessary measures to
safeguard the interests of the community in connection with the
development of the country, and, subject to any international obliga-
tions accepted by the Mandatory, shall have full power to provide for
public ownership or control of any of the natural resources of the
country or of the public works, services and utilities established or to
be established therein. It shall introduce a land system appropriate to
the needs of the country, having regard, among other things, to the
desirability of promoting the close settlement and intensive cultivation
of the land.
"The Administration may arrange with the Jewish agency mentioned
in Article 4 to construct or operate, upon fair and equitable terms, any
public works, services and utilities, and to develop any of the natural
resources of the country, in so far as these matters are not directly
undertaken by the Administration. Any such arrangements shall pro-
vide that no profits distributed by such agency, directly or indirectly,
shall exceed a reasonable rate of interest on the capital, and any
further profits shall be utilised by it for the benefit of the country
in a manner approved by the Administration."
"Article 22.
"English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the oflficial languages of Pales-
tine. Any statement or inscription in Arabic on stamps or money in
Palestine shall be repeated in Hebrew, and any statement or inscription
in Hebrew shall be repeated in Arabic."
11
"Article 25.
"In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary
of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled,
with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone
or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he
may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make
such provision for the administration of the territories as he may
consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be
taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16
and 18."
As appears from a careful reading of the above quoted articles of
the Mandate, the Mandatory power was expressly instructed thereby
and undertook to place Palestine under such political, administrative
and economic conditions as would secure the establishment of the
Jewish National Home while safeguarding the civil and religious rights
of all the inhabitants of the country. The Mandatory was instructed and
agreed to do this with the advice and cooperation of a Jewish agency
to be recognized as a public body for that purpose. It was furthermore
specifically instructed and it agreed to jacilitate Jewish immigration
into Palestine; to encourage close settlement by Jews on the land "in-
cluding state lands and waste lands not required for public purposes" ;
and to facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who
should come to live in Palestine permanently. The Mandate provided
for the right of the Jewish agency to assist in the development of the
country; including the right to construct or operate any public works,
services and utilities, and to develop any of the natural resources of the
country, "in so far as these matters are not directly undertaken by the
administration." Finally, Hebrew was to be one of the three official
languages of Palestine.
There was thus provided and set forth a generally rounded scheme
for the effectual implementation of what is unquestionably the primary
object of the Mandate, namely, the establishment of the Jewish Na-
tional Home as promised in the Balfour Declaration.
The Mandate, furthermore, did not neglect the reservations of the
Declaration concerning the safeguarding of the civil and religious
rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in the land. These were
provided for by the following articles, which are worthy of quotation
in full, not only for what they say, but also for what they do not say:
12
"ARTICLK 9.
"The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that the judicial system
established in Palestine shall assure to foreigners, as well as to natives,
a complete guarantee of their rights.
"Respect for the personal status of the various peoples and com-
munities and for their religious interests shall be fully guaranteed. In
particular, the control and administration of Wakfs (Moslem religious
and charitable foundations) shall be exercised in accordance with
religious law and the dispositions of the founders."
"Article 15.
"The Mandatory shall see that complete freedom of conscience and the
free exercise of all forms of worship, subject only to the maintenance
of public order and morals, are ensured to all. No discrimination of
any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of Palestine on
the ground of race, religion or language. No person shall be excluded
from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief.
"The right of each community to maintain its own schools for the
education of its own members in its own language, while conforming
to such educational requirements of a general nature as the Adminis-
tration may impose, shall not be denied or impaired."
"Article 16.
"The Mandatory shall be responsible for exercising such supervision
over religious or eleemosynary bodies of all faiths in Palestine as may
be required for the maintenance or public order and good government.
Subject to such supervision, no measures shall be taken in Palestine
to obstruct or interfere with the enterprise of such bodies or to dis-
criminate against any representative or member of them on the
ground of his religion or nationality."
"Article 23.
"The Administration of Palestine shall recognise the holy days of the
respective communities in Palestine as legal days of rest for the
members of such communities."
These articles, it will be noted, guaranteed to all the inhabitants of
Palestine alike full religious and civil rights and, in addition, "respect
for the personal status of the various peoples and communities and
for their religious interests". At no point is there any reference to spe-
cial political or national rights of the Arabs. Indeed, the word "Arab"
does not occur at all in the Mandate. The native Palestinians other
than Jews are referred to throughout as non-]ews.
A comparison of the four last quoted articles of the Mandate re-
lating to the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish community,
with the Preamble and the seven articles first above quoted, providing
13
for the specific implementation of the promise to establish the Jewish
National Home, completely repudiates the much later claim of the
British Government that its obligations to the Jews and to the Arabs
in Palestine under the Mandate are alike. As succinctly stated in a
recent scholarly and objective non-Jewish study of the subject pub-
ished by the American Council of Public Affairs (Hanna, British Pol-
icy in Palestine, p. 67-68) :
"It required ... a transposition of the terminology of the Mandate
by the transfer of secondary and subordinate clauses into primary
positions to give a real duality to the instrument. The plain sense of
the document was inescapable. It sought to foster the establishment of
a Jewish National Home, while safeguarding, so far as may be com-
patible with that purpose, the rights and well being of the non- Jewish
population".
Ill
THE CHURCHILL WHITE PAPER
The very small Arab NationaUst group in Palestine which in 1922
was limited almost entirely to the Effendi (the feudal aristocracy) , did
not approve of either the Balfour Declaration or the Mandate and
promptly incited some of their ignorant and fanatical followers to pro-
test by riot and murder. These riots were at first quite small and might
easily have been suppressed, and the incitement of the few Effendi
ringleaders stopped, by a firm stand on the part of the British Admin-
istration. That Administration, however, headed by Sir Herbert
Samuel, chose instead to follow a policy of appeasing the Arab ex-
tremists. This policy in varying degrees has characterized the Palestine
Administration ever since.
In order to appease these extremists, the Administration not only
failed to carry out some of the most important directives of the Man-
date but acted in direct violation of them. Thus, instead of making
available state and waste lands for close settlement by Jews as required
by Article 6, the Administration transferred for a mere pittance a large
block of very fertile but unoccupied state land in the vicinity of Beisan
to Arabs, many of whom proceeded to speculate with the land, resell-
ing it at very high prices. No allotment of these lands was made to
Jews at all. The High Commissioner furthermore kept in high office
14
under him avowed anti-Zionist British officials who encouraged the
extremist Arab opposition to the declared policy of the British Gov-
ernment. Finally, he appointed Haj Amin al-Husaini, a prominent
Arab agitator who had been sentenced to two years' imprisonment for
instigating the Nebi Musa anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem in 1920, to
the all-important post of Mufti of Jerusalem and later raised him to
even greater eminence, at a salary of £3000 a year paid by the State.
This is the infamous "Grand" Mufti who inspired every subsequent
disturbance in Palestine and who since the outbreak of the present war
has been exhorting the Moslems of Palestine and North Africa by
radio from Berlin and Rome to revolt and take up arms against the
British and the United Nations.
The inevitable results of the Administration's appeasement policy
followed almost immediately. The Arab extremists, seeing that they
could gain their point by terroristic methods, staged a murderous as-
sault upon the Jews in Jaffa and other places in May, 1921, with the
active assistance and cooperation of the Arab government police. The
Administration thereupon temporarily suspended Jewish immigration
into the country, which was precisely what the Arab extremists wanted,
and furthermore assured them that their interests would not be preju-
diced in favor of the Jews. A few months later the ban on Jewish im-
migration was removed; but an Ordinance was issued rigidly limiting
it. Nor was that all. The Arab extremists continued their pressure in
various forms and the Administration continued to yield. It offered
the Arabs a partially elective legislative council, which they rejected.
Finally, the British Government, at the instance of the Palestine Ad-
ministration, issued an interpretation of the Balfour Declaration on
July 1, 1922, known as the Churchill "White Paper. Given only two
weeks' notice to agree to the White Paper, the World Zionist Execu-
tive was unable to consult the World Zionist Congress, which alone
would have had the right to decide on so grave a matter. Under the
implied threat that the Mandate, which was at the point of being con-
firmed by the League of Nations, would be nullified or withdrawn, the
Zionist Executive was forced to concur.
It is extremely significant that only the day before the publication
of the Churchill White Paper, that is, on June 30, 1922, both Houses
of the United States Congress unanimously adopted a Joint Resolution
declaring "that the United States of America favors the establishment
in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," etc., in the
exact words of the Balfour Declaration.
15
The Churchill White Paper marked the beginning of the process
of whittling down the promise of the Balfour Declaration. The docu-
ment denied that the British Government intended to create a pre-
dominantly Jewish State in Palestine and asserted that what was con-
templated was not "that Palestine as a whole should be converted into
a Jewish National Home, but that such a home should be founded in
Palestine". It proceeded to define the meaning of the Jewish National
Home as "a center in which the Jewish people as a whole may take,
on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride". — in other
words, a Jewish cultural center. However, the Churchill White Paper
recognized that there was then only a beginning of this "center" and
stated that it should be allowed to develop further. It further declared:
"In order that this community should have the best prospect of free
development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to
display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in
Palestine as of right and not on sufferance."
The Paper furthermore announced that future Jewish immigration
would be governed by "the economic capacity of the country to absorb
new arrivals." Thus "economic absorptive capacity" became the yard-
stick by which Jewish immigration was to be measured. However, as
developed later, the Palestine Administration frequently judged the
"economic absorptive capacity" of Palestine at any given period from
the viewpoint of political considerations.
Finally, and most important of all, the Churchill White Paper, by
declaring that Palestine west of the Jordan was excluded from the
promises made to the Sherif of Mecca, for the first time indicated that
Trans-Jordan was to be omitted from the area to which the Jewish
National Home clauses of the Mandate were to apply.
The inferential exclusion of Trans-Jordan from the National Home
was soon followed by its establishment as a separate Arab state closed
to the Jews, under the kingship of the Emir Abdullah, one of the sons
of the Sherif of Mecca. A few words are in order as to the real reason
why this drastic surgical operation was performed on the National
Home in plain violation of the pledged word of Great Britain and at
such great cost to the Jews; for Arab disconteflt with the Jewish Na-
tional Home policy was only the pretext for the act and not its real
cause.
In 1915-1916 the British Government made a promise to the Sherif
of Mecca, King of the Hedjaz, to set up an independent Arab state or
states v/ithin certain vaguely defined territories of the old Turkish Em-
16
pire in the event of an Allied victory in the World War then raging,
if the Sherif would cause his Arab followers to revolt and fight on the
side of Great Britain in that war. Some of the Sherif's followers in
Arabia proper then actually did join the Allies under the leadership of
the Sherif's son, Prince Feisal. Not so, however, the Arabs of Palestine,
including Trans-Jordan, who, on the contrary, either fought in the
Turkish armies against the Allies or else remained neutral at home.
After the issuance of the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917,
the Sherif of Mecca was clearly advised by the British Government (in
January, 1918) that the Balfour Declaration would be put into effect
in Palestine, which was to be excluded from the area in which the
Arabs were to be permitted to organize their independent state or
states.* The Sherif at that time demurred; but later, on January 3,
1919, his son Emir Feisal, "representing and acting on behalf of the
Arab Kingdom of Hedjaz", actually signed a formal treaty with Dr.
Weizmann, representing the World Zionist Organization, pledging
cordial cooperation between ""the Arab state and Palestine", the full
acceptance by the Arabs of the Balfour Declaration, and the encour-
agement of the immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale and
their rapid settlement on the land. Emir Feisal, however, added a post-
script to the effect that this treaty was conditioned on the fulfillment
of the promises which his father had been given for the establishment
of an independent state or states in the Arab territories of the Near
East outside of Palestine.
The question of an independent Arab state or states was unfortu-
nately complicated by the claims of the French, who were reluctant to
give up their sphere of interest in Syria. The result was the granting of
the mandate over Syria to the French and the ousting of Feisal from
that country, where he had in the meantime installed himself as king.
The British thereupon made Feisal ruler of the vast Arab country now
known as Iraq, and the matter might have rested at that to the satis-
faction of all concerned were it not for the following two facts: (1)
That the Palestine Administration was unwilling to take measures to
control the wild Bedouin tribes of Trans-Jordan in their habitual
depredations and tried to appease them by vague promises, and (2)
that Feisal's brother Abdullah also insisted on being given a land to
rule somewhere. The British accordingly cut Trans-Jordan off from
Palestine, excluded it from the area of the promised Jewish National
Hom e and installed Abdullah there as Emir, notwithstanding the Bal-
*See Hanna, British Policy in Palestine, pp. 24-25.
17
four Declaration, the fact that Trans- Jordan was formally placed within
the British Mandate for Palestine in December, 1920, by a frontier
convention then entered into between the British and the French gov-
ernments, and that the British Colonial Office itself actually decided in
February, 1921, to "include Trans- Jordan in Palestine, to make it in-
distinguishable from Palestine and to open it to Jewish immigration".*
In order to justify themselves at least to some degree, the British in
1922 reversed the position which they had theretofore consistently
maintained, namely, that Trans- Jordan had never been promised to the
Sherif of Mecca, and suddenly asserted by implication in the Churchill
White Paper that it actually had been so promised!
The excision of Trans-Jordan from Palestine was not accomplished
all at one stroke, for the British at first merely entrusted Abdullah with
its administration for a six-month period. This temporary agreement,
however, drifted into permanency.
This arbitrary division of historic Palestine into two separate lands,
from one of which the Jews were excluded, was the most serious wrong
done to the Jewish people by the Churchill White Paper. It should be
noted, however, that so far as the truncated Palestine which was left
was concerned, the British still apparently meant to adhere to the
policy of the Balfour Declaration. Indeed, Churchill himself testified
before the Peel Commission in 1937 that there was "nothing in it (the
Churchill White Paper) to prohibit the ultimate establishment of a
Jewish State in Palestine" as thus reduced in size.f
IV
THE PASSFIELD WHITE PAPER
The Arab agitators, having thus scored a victory, were by no means
satisfied but continued their agitation. In answer, the British Admin-
istration offered them still more appeasement. The subject of a legis-
lative council was once more broached, but without avail. Nothing
serious happened between the years 1923 and 1929- Jewish immigra-
tion flowed into Palestine despite restrictive Ordinances and other diffi-
culties interposed by the Government. Jewish industrial enterprises and
•Hanna, British Policy in Palestine, p. 75.
tReport, Royal Commission, p. 33.
18
farm settlements kept on multiplying and increasing, though at a slack-
ening pace now and then due to various causes, and the face of the
barren, long neglected and malaria-ridden land was rapidly being trans-
formed by the loving care and energy of Jewish labor and the inflow of
Jewish capital.
This progress was encouraged by Field Marshal Lord Plumer, who
was appointed High Commissioner in 1925 to succeed Sir Herbert
Samuel. Lord Plumer, a British soldier who had the quality of firmness
in his character, knew how to keep the peace. When an Arab delega-
tion told him, shortly after he reached Jerusalem, that they could not
guarantee order in the country if the Balfour Declaration were not re-
called, he calmly replied that he, and not they, would be responsible
for the maintenance of order. The result was that there were not even
any attempts to create disorder during his term of office.
In the first year of Plumer's Administration, Jewish immigration
into Palestine reached the then high mark of 33,801; and although
immigration was thereafter restricted by regulations, they were due
rather to an economic depression in Palestine than to any outright
policy of appeasing the Arabs. When the depression was over, the re-
strictions on immigration were eased.
Lord Plumer was succeeded by Sir John Chancellor as High Com-
missioner in December, 1928; whereupon the Arab agitators, who had
lost influence with their own people during the Plumer Administration,
recommenced their agitation, using religious fanaticism as the goad!
The "Grand" Mufti and his clique spread a report that the Jews in-
tended to attack and demolish the Moslem holy places, including the
Mosque of Al-Aqsa and the sacred Dome of the Rock. This led at first
to an Arab demand that the Jews be denied their age-old right to pray
at the Wailing Wall. In answer to this demand the new High Commis-
sioner unfortunately showed timorous indecision. The Arab agitators,
promptly sensing that the atmosphere was once more favorable to their
schemes, openly inflamed the ignorant fellahin against the Jews with-
out let or hindrance from the British. The inevitable explosion oc-
curred in August, 1929. Jews were massacred by Arab mobs in Jerusa-
lem, Hebron, Safed and other places. A total of 133 Jews were killed,
while 116 Arabs also died as the result of the very much belated inter-
vention of the British military authorities.
The worldwide outcry which then arose caused the London Gov-
ernment to appoint a four-man Commission of Inquiry in September,
1929, known as the Shaw Commission. The evidence adduced before it
19
by the Jews tended to put the ultimate responsibility for the massacres
on the British Palestine officials; but the majority of the Commission
whitewashed the British officials and even the chief Arab instigator,
namely, the Mufti. The majority report furthermore went beyond the
scope of the Commission's authority, as defined by its terms of refer-
ence, and volunteered the recommendations that (l) Jewish immigra-
tion and land acquisition should be still further restricted by legislation
for the alleged reason that ""there is no further land available which
can be occupied by new immigrants without displacing the present
population"; and (2) that a new statement of policy should be issued
by the British Government defining its attitude toward "the second
part of the Balfour Declaration and . . . those provisions in the Man-
date, which being based upon that part of the Declaration, provide for
the safeguarding of the rights of the non-Jewish communities in
Palestine".
One member of the Commission, Mr. Harry Snell, now Lord Snell,
vigorously dissented from both the findings and the recommendations
of his colleagues.
Thus was born at this late date (1930) the doctrine that the sub-
sidiary safeguarding clauses of the Balfour Declaration in effect offset
and contradicted the positive promise to establish the Jewish National
Home in Palestine. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald promptly ap-
proved this new doctrine in a statement on April 3, 1930. His Govern-
ment, however, decided to delay a general new statement of policy
until it had received a report on economic conditions in Palestine from
Sir John Hope Simpson whom it appointed to investigate the situation.
However, before Sir John Hope Simpson had a chance to make his in-
vestigation, the British representative before the Permanent Mandates
Commission of the League of Nations announced that the recommenda-
tions of the Shaw Report were being favorably considered by his Gov-
ernment. The Permanent Mandates Commission, after a full special
hearing in June, 1930, rejected this Report and blamed the Palestine
Administration for the 1929 massacres; some of its members pointing
out in addition that the suspension of Jewish labor immigration into
Palestine was unwise and calculated to strengthen the uncompromising
attitude of Arab agitators.
Sir John Hope Simpson spent only about two months in Palestine
and then issued a report which astonished and dismayed the Jewish
world. The general tenor of it was that there was not enough land in
Palestine for both the Arabs and the Jews and that the Jews had al-
20
ready displaced large numbers of Arabs from the land; that the in-
dustrial enterprises which the Jews had established in Palestine were
unsound and would not last; that the social experiments of the Gen-
eral Federation of Jewish Labor were valueless; that no further Jewish
labor should be admitted into the country so long as there were any
Arabs in it who were unemployed, and finally, that further land trans-
fers from Arabs to Jews should be restricted pending the drafting
and introduction of a comprehensive program of agricultural develop-
ment designed to resettle the allegedly displaced Arabs upon the land.
The Ramsay MacDonald government published this report to-
gether with a new statement of policy, known as the Passfield White
Paper, on October 20, 1930. This White Paper announced in substance
that the assertions and recommendations of the Shaw Commission and
the Hope Simpson report had been adopted by the Government and
would be put into effect. It categorically accepted and promulgated the
new doctrine that the Mandatory Power had equal obligations to the
Arabs and the Jews under the Mandate. The White Paper further an-
nounced that a legislative council modeled on the long-past discarded
lines proposed by Sir Herbert Samuel in 1922 would be established in
Palestine; that in estimating the economic absorptive capacity of the
country, account would henceforth be taken of Arab as well as of
Jewish unemployment; that Jewish immigration into the country would
be still more stringently limited and controlled, and, finally, that there
was no more land available in the country for further Jewish agricul-
tural settlement except vacant areas already in the possession of the
Jews.
The storm of denunciation which this White Paper aroused all
over the world, not only among Jews but among prominent and in-
formed non-Jews as well, clearly demonstrated the universal feeling
that the MacDonald Government had committed a gross breach of
faith and fair dealing. Among those who led the denunciation were
Lord Balfour himself, who signed the original Declaration of 1917 on
behalf of the British Government; Dr. Weizmann, Lord Melchett and
Felix Warburg, who resigned from their official positions in the Jewish
Agency in protest, and such leaders of the Conservative Party in
England as Stanley Baldwin, subsequently Prime Minister; Austen
Chamberlain, subsequently Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and
Leopold S. Amery, formerly Colonial Secretary. These last three states-
men published an open letter accusing the MacDonald Government of
21
issuing a statement the spirit of which was contrary to the Balfour
Declaration, the view of the Permanent Mandates Commission and
British policy for the preceding twelve years. Field Marshal Smuts tele-
graphed MacDonald from South Africa urging an immediate repudia-
tion of the White Paper. Lord Hailsham, formerly Lord High Chan-
cellor of England, and Sir John Simon, formerly Attorney General and
now Lord High Chancellor in the Churchill Government, published a
letter in the London "Times" attacking the Passfield Paper as clearly
violative of the terms of the Mandate.
Former Prime Minister David Lloyd George brought the matter up
in Parliament, where he insisted that the establishment of the Jewish
National Home was the dominant obligation of the Balfour Declara-
tion which his Government had issued. Sir Herbert Samuel, too, then
back in the House of Commons, joined in the attack on the White
Paper. So did such prominent members of MacDonald's own Labor
Party as Harry Snell and Joseph Kenworthy.
In the face of these protests, the MacDonald Government felt itself
compelled to retreat somewhat. Dr. Weizmann was accordingly assured
by Lord Passfield that he had misunderstood the White Paper and that
there was no intention of crystallizing the Zionist settlement at its exist-
ing stage of development. MacDonald informed Parliament that there
would be no change of policy toward the Mandate, which would be
strictly observed. Finally, on February 13, 1931, MacDonald published
a letter to Dr. Weizmann which specifically recognized that the Palestine
Mandate embodied an obligation to the whole Jewish people and not
merely to the Jewish community resident in Palestine, that existing con-
ditions in that country would not be frozen and that further land acquisi-
tion by the Jews would not be prevented. It furthermore gave assurances
that the considerations controlling the determination of the absorptive
capacity of the country in the future would be purely economic, and that
the needs of new enterprises which the Jews might establish there
would be taken into account in allotting immigration schedules.
This letter was conciliatory in tone and did much to sweep away
the spirit of hostility to the Jewish National Home which permeated
the original Passfield White Paper.
For some five years after the modification of the Passfield White
Paper by Ramsay MacDonald's Letter, substantial peace reigned in
Palestine and the country underwent a truly remarkable development.
Jewish capital and Jewish immigration continued to flow in at an
accelerated pace. Despite the restrictive efforts of the Palestine Admin-
22
istration, the country's rapid development completely disproved the
assertions of the Shaw Commission and of Sir John Hope Simpson in
1930 that the country then had virtually reached the limit of its eco-
nomic absorptive capacity. An index of this is to be found in the fact
that the country readily absorbed over 30,000 Jewish immigrants in
1933, over 42,000 in 1934, and over 61,000 in 1935, in addition to
many tens of thousands of Arab immigrants from neighboring coun-
tries. These figures represent the authorized immigration. In addition,
there were tens of thousands of uncertificated Jewish immigrants dur-
ing those years. For the Jews, fleeing from intolerable conditions in
Nazi Germany, kept coming in through the back door of Palestine,
(without the authorization of the Administration), when they found
the front door locked against them.
The ensuing prosperity of the country benefited Jews and Arabs
alike. The value of Palestinian exports steadily rose, due to the enter-
prise of Jewish labor and capital; and the Palestine government actu-
ally accumulated a surplus from taxation by April, 1936, amounting to
no less than £6,267,000. The taxes which went to provide the Govern-
ment with this comparatively large surplus over and above its large
expenditures were paid mostly by the Jews.
By striking comparison, Trans-Jordan, which concededly has great
agricultural and commercial possibilities if properly developed, but
from which the Jews have been excluded, remained and remains to this
day a poverty-stricken, primitive and greatly underpopulated country;
toward the cost of governing which, small as such cost is, the British
Treasury in London has been regularly compelled year after year to
contribute grants-in-aid at the expense of the taxpayers of England.
Another basic contention of the Shaw Commission and Hope
Simpson — that large numbers of Arabs had been displaced from the
land by the influx of Jews — ^was officially shown to be false when in
April, 1932, Lewis French, who had been appointed Director of Devel-
opment in Palestine to devise a scheme for the resettlement of the so-
called displaced or landless Arabs upon the land, reported, after a
thorough investigation, that the number of such Arabs throughout the
years of Jewish land acquisition since 1920 did not exceed 664 families.
To this very small number of families land was then actually offered
by the Palestine Administration. Very few of them, however, accepted
the offer. The Government Report states that all registered Arabs of this
class who were ready to take up holdings upon Government estates had
been accommodated by the end of 1934.
23
THE MACDONALD WHITE PAPER OF 1939
The prosperity and development of Palestine which the Jews had
brought about, with its resultant benefits to the mass of the Arabs,
spelled obvious danger to the feudal domination of the Arab Effendi
class This caused the extremists among them to renew their agitation
against the Jewish National Home, and renewed disorders occurred in
1933. These were quickly suppressed. During the next three years the
Effendi agitators were fairly effectively checkmated; but when Sir
Arthur Wauchope, the new High Commissioner, on January 29, 1936,
responded to their protest against any further Jewish immigration with
the categorical statement that "there can be no question of the total
stoppage of Jewish immigration into Palestine," they resorted to the
extreme measure of proclaiming an Arab general strike. This was fol-
lowed by disorders which the Administration unfortunately hesitated to
repress with the necessary force. Finally, in May, 1936, some sixty
Arab agitators were arrested and placed under police supervision. In
June some of the more prominent leaders among them were interned
in a detention camp. Other measures were belatedly taken by the Ad-
ministration in an effort to end the troubles. These measures did not
prove entirely successful, however, because of a new element which
entered the situation.
This new element was the financial and other support afforded
certain organized Arab bands by the German and the Italian dictators,
in collusion with the Mufti and his followers, for the express purpose
of fomenting revolt in Palestine against the British. It was in fact a
part of the Axis preparation for war against England, although the
English did not recognize it as such at the time. The bandits wreaked
havoc upon and murdered not only Jews, but also peaceful Palestinian
Arabs — in fact very many more Arabs than Jews; and the Administra-
tion seemed unable to stop the murder and pillage.
The London Government then appointed still another investigating
Commission under the chairmanship of Lord Peel. The report of this
Commission is above referred to as the Royal Commission Report. It
was issued in 1937 and is in many respects a singularly honest and
straightforward document. It recited the history and true intent of the
Balfour Declaration, as above set forth. It swept away the improvised
24
doctrine of the Passfield White Paper — that the Mandatory was under
equal obligations to the Arabs and tlie Jews under the Mandate — with
the unquahfied statement, based on a thorough analysis and review of
the history of the document, that
"Unquestionably . . . the primary purpose of the Mandate, as expressed
in its Preamble and its articles, is to promote the establishment of the
Jewish National Home". (Author's italics.)
It furthermore demolished once and for all the thesis of the earlier
Shaw Commission and of Sir John Hope Simpson, that the limit of
Palestine's economic absorptive capacity had already been reached in
1929 — a thesis which had been proved groundless by events — ^with the
following frank and conclusive statem.ent:
"So far from reducing "economic absorptive capacity', immigration
increased it. The more immigrants came in, the more work they
created for local industries to meet their needs, especially in building;
and more work meant more room for immigrants under the "labour
schedule'. Unless, therefore, the Government adopted a more restrictive
policy, or unless there were some economic or financial set-back, there
seemed no reason why the rate of immigration should not go on
climbing up."
The Commission, however, came to the conclusion that owing to
the continuing intransigence of the Arabs, the Mandate had become
unworkable and must be abrogated. It accordingly recommended the
division of Palestine and Trans-Jordan into three regions, one of which,
including that parr of Palestine lying north of Beisan and the entire
coastal region north of a point half way between Jaffa and Gaza,
should be set up as a Jewish sovereign state. Another region, compris-
ing the rest of Palestine except certain designated cities, with the whole
of Trans-Jordan, were to constitute an independent Arab state; while
Jerusalem and three other ""holy" cities, together with a corridor to the
sea from Jerusalem to Jaffa, were to remain under permanent British
mandate.
This scheme of partition was received with dissatisfaction by both
Jews and Arabs, although the World Zionist Congress, while rejecting
the scheme as outlined, left the door open to negotiations for a more
satisfactory arrangement. The British Government, however, on July
7, 1937, issued a White Paper announcing its adoption of the partition
scheme on the general lines recommended by the Peel Commission.
This White Paper further announced the immediate stoppage of further
Jewish land purchases and the limitation of the number of Jews to be
admitted to Palestine up to March, 1938, to no more than 8,000.
25
This startling action of the Chamberlain Government aroused a
new wave of Jewish protest the world over. It furthermore met oppo-
sition at the hands of the British Parliament and the Permanent Man-
dates Commission. The utter impracticability of the partition scheme
was pointed out by numerous prominent leaders of British life. Fi-
nally, the intransigent Arab agitators, led by the Mufti, wholly rejected
the scheme and renewed their inflammatory agitation, with resultant
new Arab disturbances.
The disturbances this time, however, were marked by the assassina-
tion, not of some inoffensive Jews or even Arabs, but of a high British
Palestine official and his police escort on September 26, 1937. The
Palestine Administration then immediately removed the notorious
Mufti from his official positions, thus separating him from his state
salary of £3000 a year and also from control of the large Moslem re-
ligious and charitable funds. The next day the Administration issued
warrants for the arrest and deportation of the chief Arab leaders, in-
cluding the head of the Mufti's party. The Mufti himself escaped
from Palestine to Syria, whence he later continued his escape to Iraq
and finally to the protection of Hitler in Berlin. The other agitators
were deported to the Seychelles Islands.
The British Government in London then proceeded with its plans
to implement the partition scheme. But a Commission appointed for
that purpose under the chairmanship of Sir John Woodhead, finally
reported on November 9, 1938, that the scheme was impracticable,
and suggested instead that if any partition scheme was to be put
into effect at all, the area of the Jewish state should be still further
limited in size. The Government thereupon announced the abandon-
ment of the whole idea, and invited representatives of the Jews and
the Palestine Arabs, as well as of the Arabic countries around Palestine,
to confer with it in London with a view to elaborating another solution
of the Palestine problem on an amicable basis.
The conference thus summoned opened in London on February 7,
1939, with delegations from the Arab states surrounding Palestine and
from two separate groups of the Palestine Arabs themselves, and rep-
resentatives of world Jewry. The conference accomplished nothing,
dragging its weary course on until March 17, 1939, when it was
brought to an end. The Chamberlain Government's proposals to the
conference were clearly motivated by the same policy of appeasement
which not long before had vainly sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Hitler.
They were heavily weighted against the Jews in the hope of securing
26
the cooperation of the Arab countries around Palestine on the side of
England in the forthcoming war, which was already casting its shadow
over the world. The confident Arabs rejected even these proposals. The
Chamberlain Government then decided to put them into effect anyway;
and on May 17, 1939, issued still another White Paper, known as the
MacDonald White Paper, so called after Malcolm MacDonald, son of
Ramsay, then Colonial Secretary. A summary of its devastating pro-
visions follows:
(1) It declared unequivocally "that it is not part of their (the
British Government's) policy that Palestine should become a Jewish
State"; asserting that it would be contrary to the Government's obliga-
tions to the Arabs under the Mandate to make the Arab population of
Palestine "subjects of a Jewish State against their will."
(2) It declared the intention of the Government to establish Pales-
tine as an independent state at the end of ten years, with certain vague
safeguards for the rights of the Jewish minority then resident in the
country. That state, when established, would of course be an Arab
State, since the Jews would then constitute no more than a third of the
population pursuant to certain express provisions of the White Paper
below summarized. In the meanwhile, the several peoples of Palestine
would be given an increasing part in the government of the country in
proportion to their numbers.
(3) It expressly repudiated the undertaking contained in Ramsay
MacDonald's letter to Dr. Weizmann of 1931 and in repeated assur-
ances of the British Government to the League of Nations to the effect
that the extent of Jewish immigration into Palestine would be limited
only by the economic absorptive capacity of the country, and announced
instead that political considerations would in addition thenceforth be
taken into account in the matter. It accordingly announced that further
expansion of the Jewish National Home by immigration would be per-
mitted only if the Arabs should consent to it. As a sop to the Jews,
however, it declared that the Government would permit further Jewish
immigration up to but not beyond the point where the Jem of Pales-
tine will constitute "approximately one-third of the total population of
the country" ; thus ensuring that the Jews would remain a permanent
minority. It further arbitrarily fixed the maximum number of such ad-
ditional immigrants at 75,000 and provided that they would be ad-
mitted into the country at the rate of not more than 10,000 a year for
the next five years, if the economic absorptive capacity of the country
27
allowed of such admissions, plus an additional 25,000 Jewish refugees
from Hitlerism "as soon as the High Commissioner is satisfied that
adequate provision for their maintenance is ensured". The White
Paper explicitly declared that after this five-year period "no further
Jewish immigration will be permitted unless the Arabs of Palestine are
prepared to acquiesce in it."
(4) It clothed the High Commissioner with powers to prohibit
and regulate further transfers of land from Arabs to Jews.
How the policy thus enunciated squares with the Balfour Declara-
tion and the Mandate can best be determined from the comments on
this policy by Mr. Winston Churchill on the floor of the House of
Commons on May 23, 1939, before he became a member of the British
War Cabinet:
"I feel bound to vote against the proposals of His Majesty's Govern-
ment. As one intimately and responsibly concerned in the earlier stages
of our Palestine policy, I could not stand by and see solemn engage-
ments into which Britain has entered before the world, set aside for
reasons of administrative convenience or — and it will be a vain hope —
for the sake of a quiet life. I should feel personally embarrassed in the
most acute manner if I lent myself, by silence or inaction, to what I
must regard as an act of repudiation ... I was from the beginning a
sincere advocate of the Balfour Declaration, and I have made repeated
public statements to that effect . . .
"There is much in this White Paper which is alien to the spirit of the
Balfour Declaration, but I will not trouble about that. I select the one
point upon which there is plainly a breach and repudiation of the
Balfour Declaration — the provision that Jewish immigration can be
stopped in five years' time by the decision of an Arab majority . . .
What is that but the destruction of the Balfour Declaration? What is
that but a breach of faith? (Author's italics.) What is it but a one-
sided denunciation — what is called in the jargon of the present time,
a unilateral denunciation of an engagement? . . .
"Is our condition so parlous and our state so poor that we must, in
our weakness, make this sacrifice of our declared purpose? Akhough I
have been very anxious that we should strengthen our armaments and
spread our alliances and so increase the force of our position, I must
say that I have not taken such a low view of the strength of the
British Empire or of the very many powerful countries who desire to
walk in association with us; but if the Government, with their superior
knowledge of the deficiencies in our armaments which have arisen
during their stewardship, really feel that we are too weak to carry out
our obligations and wish to file a petition in moral and physical
28
bankruptcy, that is an argument which, however ignominious, should
certainly weigh with the House in these dangerous times. But is it
true? I do not believe it is true. I cannot believe that the task to which
we set our hand twenty years ago in Palestine is beyond our strength,
or that faithful perseverance will not, in the end, bring that task
through to a glorious success. I am sure of this, that to cast the plan
aside and show yourselves infirm of will and unable to pursue a long,
clear and considered purpose, bending and twisting under the crush
and pressure of events — I am sure that that is going to do us a most
serious and grave injury at a time like this . . .
"What will the world think about it? What will our friends say? What
will be the opinion of the United States of America?
"What will our potential enemies think? What will those who have
been stirring up these Arab agitators think? Will they not be en-
couraged by our confession of recoil? Will they not be tempted to say:
"They're on the run again. This is another Munich,' and be the more
stimulated in their aggression . . . ?
"It is hoped to obtain five years of easement in Palestine by this
proposal; surely the consequences will be entirely the opposite. A
sense of moral weakness in the Mandatory Power, whose many years
of vacillation and uncertainty have largely provoked the evils from
which we suffer, will rouse all the violent elements in Palestine to the
utmost degree . . . What about these five years? Who shall say where
we are going to be five years from now? Europe is more than two-
thirds mobilized tonight. The ruinous race of armaments now carries
whole populations into the military machine. That cannot possibly
continue for five years, nor for four, nor for three years. It may be that
it will not continue beyond the present year. Long before those five
years are past, either there will be a Britain which knows how to keep
its v/ord on the Balfour Declaration and is not afraid to do so, or,
believe me, we shall find ourselves relieved of many oversea responsi-
bilities other than those comprised within the Palestine Mandate ..."
Notwithstanding Churchill's eloquent denunciation, the policy of the
MacDonald White Paper has been rigidly put into effect. Stark trage-
dies have resulted from it in the loss of Jewish life on the S.S. Patria
and other ships freighted with hunted Jews from Hitlerized Europe
striving desperately to reach safety and a resting place in their prom-
ised Homeland. The loyalty to Britain in the War which this cruel
betrayal of the Jews was designed to secure from the Arab states and
peoples did not materialize, as Churchill foresaw. Some months after
the outbreak of the War, Iraq went over to the side of the Axis against
Britain; and it took the force of British arms and the blood of British
soldiers to overthrow its pro-Axis government and force the country
29
back, at least nominally, on the side of the United Nations. So, too,
Arabic-speaking Egypt, occupying so vitally strategic a position on the
lifeline of the United Nations, refused to muster its strength even to
defend its own soil when invaded by the Axis. Even now, when the
United Nations are well on the road to victory, Egypt is still "neutral".
Likewise "neutral" have remained the Arab peoples of Palestine and
of Syria, who, again, must perforce so remain, even if they wished to be
actively pro-Axis, because of the presence of large United Nations'
armies in their midst. The fugitive Mufti is openly supporting the Axis.
Of all the peoples in the Near East, only the Palestine Jews have eagerly
flocked to the colors of the United Nations in tens of thousands, just as
the Jews of the world have been devotedly fighting in hundreds of
thousands, and are giving their effort, treasure and lives to the achieve-
ment of the United Nations victory. The only and consistent complaint
of the Palestinian Jews is that they are not permitted to do even more
to this end.
The policy of the MacDonald "White Paper is not international law,
as it has not been authorized by the only body having the legal right to
do so, namely, the Council of the League of Nations. Indeed, the Man-
dates Commission of the League has expressly declared it to be con-
trary to and violative of the Mandate. Neither has the United States
yet assented to this virtual nullification of the Mandate in its most
vital provisions and purpose. In putting this policy into effect against
the disapproval of the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations
and without the approval of the League Council and of the United
States, Great Britain has clearly acted in contravention of established
law, contrary to the terms of the Mandate, and against its own specific
legal undertaking. Its action, at a time of a martyred people's desperate
need, violates the fundamental humanity and decency of English tradi-
tion. The policy must therefore be regarded as only tentative and tem-
porary; a policy which all right-thinking men and women must reject.
30
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