Perspectives on the 1939 White Paper During World War II

In 1939, the British presidency published a sporty report s foreverely curb Judaic in-migration and planning for an fissiparous Palestinian raise in spite of appearance ten years. On the part of the British, this was an effort to secure crucial Arab cooperation in case of contendfare. But neither the Jews nor the Arabs were pleased with the uninfected root. The Jews alikek direct transaction over against it, arguing that it violated earlier promises that had been made to them. The Arabs, on the other hand, argued that the restrictions were too weak.Still, the Arabs recognized the sportsmanlike Paper as a move in the mature direction and although they went on record as opposed to it, they did non openly run it. While the Jews forcefully rejected the blank Paper, near of the Zionist leadershiphip postponed the fight against the British in order to digest them in the war. Some Judaic terrorist organizations, however, did spring up to target Britain. through bug out World fight II, the bloodless Paper allowed the British the backup man they had been seeking from the Arabs, speckle drawing op station from the Jews.In the period leading up to the baffle of the fresh Paper, Britains attempts to resolve the crisis in promised land occurred against a ground of developing tensions in Europe and the Mediterranean that ultimately had a study impact on Britains paradise constitution (Smith 139). To the British, the Arab Revolt that had interpreted place from 1936 to 1939 signified a rebellion that had to be crushed, non exactly to preserve Britains own incline in promised land as the requisite power, but to consolidate that position by appealing for Arab support both at heart and outside heaven once the revolt had cease (Smith 139).This position was adopted as the terror of war began to loom ambient. German and Italian propaganda was aimed toward the Arabs, encouraging them to revolt against the British. The British k youthful that they could not afford to conduct outsize numbers of troops to quash a rebellion when t inheritor forces would be necessary in Europe. They as well as recognized the strategical importance of promised land, and British military planners now began to view promised land in light of envisaged wartime need (Smith 139).Any troops currently in promised land would conduct to be transferred to Egypt and the Suez groove at the outbreak of war, and hithertotually reinforcements from India would have to travel through Palestine. quietness in Palestine was now considered essential to British military tribute (Smith 139). But to a greater extent was necessary to guarantee British security in the region. In addition to control over Palestine, the British unavoidable potency of the tacit, if not open, support of the neighboring Arab countries (Smith 140).The Palestine situation was crucial to gaining this support, as Arab leaders had become increasingly involved in the conflict during the revolt. Creating a solution that was favorable to the Arabs would promise Britain the support of the Arab world during the war. In January 1939, British strategists advised that immediately on the outbreak of war, the necessary measures would be interpretedin order to bring about a complete appeasement of Arab opinion in Palestine and in neighboring countries (Smith 140) The British in any(prenominal) case recognized that maintaining their mandatory power in Palestine was necessary if they holdd to intake it as a strategic base.But the Partition Plan had already been proposed by the Peel bearing in 1937. This raised questions in the Foreign smudge if the Jews were recognized as having national status in part of Palestine, what hike up just nowification would there be for Britains staying there as mandatory authority? (Smith 140). Nevertheless, the Cabinet approved the Partition Plan. Expecting the Zionists to do the same, they were start lead by the force of Zio nist competition to the plan (Smith 140). As a result, the Woodhead Commission was formed to investigate the possibilities for partition.The Foreign mightiness, which bulletproofly opposed partition, used this opportunity to have the committee reopen the question of the practicability of partition, not just its scope (Smith 140). Fearing a hostile Arab reaction to British policy, the Foreign Office argued that the European implications of a hostile Middle East aligned with Britains enemies must override the arguments in favour of partition (Smith 140). The Woodhead commission submitted its shroud in November 1938, after a period of severe Arab revolt had temporarily paralyzed much of Palestine (Smith 141).The Commission concluded that there were no feasible boundaries for self-supporting Arab and Judaic states (Smith 141). Still, the commissioners recomm completeed three different partition plans. whiz plan trim the Judaic portion to approximately 400 comforting miles alon g the coast, term the other both made the state even smaller. The Zionists rejected all of the proposals, which paved the stylus for the British government to essence a neat Paper on November 9, 1938, which discarded the entire purpose of partition as impracticable (Smith 141).This abandonment of partition allowed the British to take control of all of Palestine, securing their mandatory power and their strategic bases. Although they had succeeded in maintaining control, the British passive needed to resolve the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews. The fair Paper therefore called for a conference in which the two group would cover coming(prenominal) policy, including the question of immigration into Palestine (Smith 141). It in addition warned that if the two parties could not agree, the British would take their own decision in the light of their interrogatory of the problem (Smith 141).The St. James meeting, held in London in February 1939, swiftly reached an impass e. Jamal al-ibn Talal Husseini, the cousin-german of the mufti, demanded the creation of an independent Arab state and the dismantling of the Judaic National Home, while Chaim Weizmann argued for a continuation of the command and British sponsorship of unlimited immigration (Smith 141). With the threat of war looming ever closer, Arab opinion in the Middle East now seemed more important to British interests than was Jewish opinion in Palestine or Jewish policy-making influence in London (Smith 143).The British government unconquerable to act. They finally agreed to the Arab state overtures (Smith 142) and published the clean Paper on May 17, 1939. The 1939 White Paper illustrated a immobilise reversal of policy (Smith 139) and was interpreted by contemporaries as mark the end of the alliance between the Jews and Great Britain (Shapira 276). It restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine to 10,000 per year for five years with an additional 25,000 refugees supportted. after(p renominal) five years, no further Jewish immigration would be allowed unless the Arabs of Palestine are inclined(p) to acquiesce in it (Shapira 469). Land transfers to Jews were likewise restricted to certain areas. The White Paper bindd that His Majestys Government believe that the framers of the edict in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intend that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish state against the volition of the Arab universe of discourse of the demesne (Smith 142). The revolutionary policy planned for Palestine to be an independent Arab state within ten ears, when Jews would build up no more than one-third of the cosmos. Zionist reaction to the 1939 White Paper was abrupt. Declaring that the Jews would resist its implementation, the Jewish Agency argued that the plan was contrary to international law and a impact of the promises made to the Jews in and since the Balfour Declaration (Smith 142). On the day after its publication, the golden Rabbi tore up a copy of the White Paper in the first place the assembled congregation in the principal synagogue of Jerusalem.Street demonstrations in the same city resulted in the death of a British constable from a Jewish revolver shot. Mass meetings of Jews throughout the country took an oath to observe a proclamation which contained the following passages Whereas the British Government has announced a new policy in PalestineNow therefore the Jewish population proclaims before the world that this treacherous policy will not be tolerated. The Jewish population will fight it to the uttermost, and will spare no sacrifice to frustrate and defeat it (Khalidi 473).Jews in Palestine overly announced policies of civil disobedience and non-cooperation with the British, but these plans soon ceased as Jewish leaders knew that if the Government were to cease its active support of the National Home the last mentioneds entire structure would be imperiled (Khalidi 473). In ecumeni cal, the Zionist leadership abandoned the fight against Britain and dedicated itself to promoting maximum participation of the Jewish corporation in the war effort (Shapira 280). The Jewish community argued over whether they should fight the White Paper or support the British in the hope that their post-war policy would change. muffles felt that the White Paper had been issued only be dress the war required Arab support. Arthur Ruppin wrote in his diary in May 1939 that This White Paper emanates from a certain political constellation (Arab united forepart, Britains fear of the Arabs) and will be equally short-lived (Shapira 290). Moderates demanded that tension with the British be reduced Jews should be unconditionally loyal until the end of the war, assuming that the British government would ultimately change its policy (Shapira 290).Even Vladimir Jabotinsky, despite all this criticism of the mandate government and all his attempts to exert pressure on it by expectant to replace it with another power, was not brisk to give Britain a schnoz of divorce. Until his dying day, he supported a pro-British orientation (Shapira 246). Immigration, though, remained a strong heyday of contention. Before the publication of the White Paper, Zionist leaders had decided to increase il level-headed immigration of Jews into Palestine. Of the 27,561 Jews who arrived in Palestine in 1939, 11,156 were unauthorized (Smith 165).With the beginning of war, these plans intensified as thousands of refugees attempted to flee Europe. David Ben-Gurion warned that while Jews would booster the British in their struggle as if there were no White Paper they would also resist the White Paper as if there were no war (Shapira 279). This situation brought Zionists and British officials into immediate conflict (Smith 165). When the British decided to hold illegal immi contributes in internment camps in Palestine, the Zionists reacted by flooding the country with immigrants in order to make the policy impossible.The British then decided that refugees who reached Palestine would be transferred to the island of Mauritius. They simultaneously struggled to stop the electric current of refugees from Europe by urging countries like Turkey to deny them transit. After the outbreak of war, the impossible refugee situation created almosta war within a war as Jews became increasingly bitter at what they axiom as British inhumanity (Smith 165). This situation led to disaster. In November 1940, British naval patrols intercepted two ships and transferred over 1,700 refugees to the SS Patria to be deported to Mauritius.While the ship was ported in Haifa, the Jewish defense force Hagana arranged for a bomb to be primed(p) near the hull to disable the ship, thereby forcing British authorities to permit the Jews to stay. The plan miscarried, and the ship sank with over 200 casualties (Smith 165). The Zionists were outraged. Faced with propaganda that accused them of function for th e deaths, the British cabinet allowed the survivors of the Patria to remain in Palestine.Another disaster occurred in February 1942 when the British convinced the Turks to forbid the SS Struma passage into the Mediterranean. The ship full of Romanian Jews was turned back and sank with only one survivor. To the Zionists, this was proof of British treachery (Smith 165). While most Jewish leaders recognized that they could not declare war on Britain, Jewish terrorist groups did grow and aim their attacks at the British. The Jewish broadcasting station, Kol Israel, utter that The paralysing of the railways all over the country through utting the lines in 242 places serves as a sample to the Government of the White Paper (Khalidi 606). such activists saw the White Paper as the result of a British assessment that the Jews had no choice but to resign themselves to an anti-Zionist policy, because they needed British protection against the Arabs (Shapira 290). They set out to prove the B ritish wrong. They argued that the only way to bring about a change in British policy was by ample demonstration of Jewish power and willingness to fight and pose losses (Shapira 290).They also hoped to show the British government that enforcing the new restrictions would make it necessary for them to carry out acts of suppression on a walloping scale, and it was doubtful whether the British government would approve (Shapira 290). Their actions were knowing to send the British a clear message about what the absolute limits were, limits beyond which they were prepared to die and even to kill (Shapira 290). The publication of the 1939 White Paper also led the Irgun, a Revisionist terrorist group, to shift its focus from the Arabs to the British.Irgun began attacking British administrative buildings, assaulting British police personnel, and bombing gathering places. But once the war began, Jabotinsky urged his followers in the Revisionist party to support the British effort against the Nazis (Smith 170). or so of the Irgun followed Jabotinskys orders. Those who did not were led by Abraham Stern. The Stern work party, formed in 1940, was willing to rob Jewish concerns, such as a Histadrut bank, with Jewish loss of life as well as assault British officials (Smith 170).Stern simultaneously established dealinghips with German and Italian representatives, offering them his service to their cause for the duration of the war (Smith 170). Ignoring the Nazis anti-Semitic platform, Stern allied himself with the Germans simply because they were fighting Britain. The Hagana and the Irgun both condemned the Stern Gang, offering the British police information that led to Sterns murder in a February 1942 raid. For the next two years, there was little Zionist underground activity.The leaders of the Stern Gang were either dead or in prison, and the Irgun had lost its leadership with Jabotinskys death. But Menachem array, who arrived in Palestine in 1942, saw himself as th e heir to Jabotinskys Revisionist i bring offs (Smith 170). At the end of 1943, both Irgun and the Stern Gang were again preparing for anti-British action, inspired by both the receding German threat in the Middle East and the ongoing tensions in Zionist-British relations, exacerbated particularly by the bequest of the refugee ships and the growing awareness of the Holocaust (Smith 170).This situation led to cooperation between Begin and the remaining members of the Stern Gang. Under the name LEHI, they resumed their actions against Britain. The actions of LEHI resulted in the opposite of their intended effects. In July 1943, Winston Churchill instigated the creation of a cabinet committee on Palestine that would examine alternatives to the 1939 White Paper. The committee recommended partition, but the plan was never officially approved because on November 6, members of LEHI assassinated Lord Moyne, the deputy minister of state for Middle East Affairs in Cairo.Since Moyne had been a close helper of Churchill, the Prime Minister reacted by shelving the partition scheme he had seen through, against cadaver opposition from his ministers (Smith 170). He announced to the House of Commons that if our dreams for Zionism are to end in the smoke of assassins pistols and our labours for its future to produce only a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently in the past (Smith 170).Partition was not discussed again during Churchills term. For the duration of the war, Churchills warning to the Jews worked they stopped underground activities that seemed to threaten the likelihood of any cooperation with a British government after the war (Smith 170). Arab views on the White Paper also varied, as The Arab community in Palestine was essentially leaderless, riven with more factions than ever before (Smith 144). Although they recognized this as a step in the right direction, The Arab reaction was only partially favourable (Khalidi 470).They were pleased with the definite relation that there was no intention of setting up a Jewish state and the apparent determination to make Palestine an independent country in which the Jews formed not more than a third of the thorough population (Khalidi 470). But they still viewed the restrictions concerning land sales as quite an inadequate because they ignored the fact that the rights and position of the Arab population were also organism prejudiced by land purchases made by Jews avowedly for political and strategical causalitys i. . , with a view to dominating the whole country (Khalidi 470). Arabs also had trouble believing that the British would enforce these new immigration plans. From their point of view, akin(predicate) statements at intervals during the last twenty years had never to that extent been followed by a cessation of the illegal immigration, and the Arab delegates saw no reason to suppose that they wo uld be on this occasion either (Khalidi 470).Precautionary statements in the White Paper such as should public opinion in Palestine hereafter show itself in favour of such a ontogeny and provided that local conditions permit, taken together with adequate provision for the special position in Palestine of the Jewish National Home suggested to the Arabs that Jewish opposition would still be allowed to block constitutional development indefinitely (Khalidi 471). Moderate Arabs and the leaders of the Arab governments saw the White Paper as hopeful.Those who encouraged rebelliousness optimistically used the example of the Arab Revolt and its presumed success in forcing Britain to deal with the Arabs, whatever its military failure (Smith 144). The Arab Higher Committee, on the other hand, repudiated the White Paper because it did not promise them immediate independence with a draw a blank to Jewish immigration (Smith 142), maintaining its consistent refusal to admit that any part of Pa lestine should be given to the Zionists (Smith 144). As a result of their rejection of the White Paper, A certain limited recrudescence of Arab violence even manifested itself in Palestine (Khalidi 471).The mufti, who had been officially banned from Palestine after his escape in October 1937, had a similar reaction. After the outbreak of war, British officials in Palestine sought the muftis support for the White Paper and his help in implementing it. They did so out of fear of his ability to arouse general Arab hostility toward the British position in the Middle East at that time (Smith 171). The mufti rejected these requests and the White Paper itself and instead aligned himself with the Iraqi rebellion against Great Britain in April 1941, and once it failedhe spent the rest of the war supporting the German war effort (Smith 171).In general, though, Arab reaction to the 1939 White Paper was not hostile. Agreeing not to engage in overt political activity, members of the Higher Commi ttee legitimate British offers of safe return to Palestine (Smith 172). Other leaders including a number of leading members of the Istaqlal and the Palestine Arab party that represented the Husaynis, along with Husayn al-Khalidi of the Reform party, reestablished themselves in the country. In general they indicated their reserved acceptance of the 1939 White Paper and istanced themselves from the mufti (Smith 172). Although fierce Axis propaganda (including the mufti urging rebellion) was focused on Palestine in 1941 and 1942, the Arabs in Palestine remained calm. Another revolt was recognized as out of the question, both for political and military reasons. It appeared that the British were coming closer to the Arab point of view. Although they were still quite far from meeting the Arab demands, the process was proceeding in a positive direction from the Arab perspective (Shapira 282).In addition, the Arabs realized that any uprising would have been immediately put down by British forces stationed in Palestine. In general, the Arab community in Palestine remained a inactive element in the occurrences both during the war and afterward. The years 1939-1947 were apparently the perennial continuous period of quiet and relative tranquility in Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine since the 1920s (Shapira 282). The reaction of Palestinian Arabs was one of general political quiescence (Kimmerling 134). To many, the White Paper indicated that the British intended to grant Arab independence in Palestine.Arabs saw the Zionist struggle against the policy as a sign of anxiety and weakness (Kimmerling 134). They were certain that All they needed to do was bide their time (Kimmerling 134). The British governments strategic decision to publish the 1939 White Paper therefore proved fruitful. Although the Arabs were not entirely pleased with the decision and argued for stronger restrictions, they did offer the British their support during the war. The Jews, on the other hand, were divided in their reaction to the White Paper.Some violently fought the restrictions while others recognized the importance of siding with Britain. The British recognized that the consequences of Jewish terrorism were far outweighed by the support they needed from the Arab world, and throughout World War II the 1939 White Paper succeeded in that respect. Both Arabs and Jews rejected the White Paper, although to differing degrees. The Arabs argued that the restrictions were too weak, but they still offered Britain their support. The Jews struggled to fight the policy while still backing the British war effort.The British entered World War II aware that their Palestine policy reversal in the 1939 White Paper had outraged the Zionists without satisfying the Arabs. They accepted this as the price for temporarily alter their military and strategic positions in Palestine and the Arab world at largeIt was a short-term strategy of expediency and calculated appeasement designed to serve Britains immediate wartime and possibly long-range imperial designs that expect a British presence in Palestine for the foreseeable future (Smith 145).Summary of each Info about reexamination of Husayn-McMahon Correspondence? See also Khalidi p. 468 for this. The Zionist (Biltmore) Program held in in May 1942 declared that The conference calls for the fulfillment of the original purpose of the Balfour Declaration whichwas to afford them Jews the opportunity, as stated by President Wilson, to found there a Jewish Commonwealth.The Conference affirms its unalterable rejection of the White Paper of May 1939 and denies its moral or legal validityThe policy of the White Paper is cruel and indefensible in its denial of sanctuary to Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution and at a time when Palestine has become a focal point in the war front of the United Nations, and Palestine Jewry must provide all available workforce for farm and factory and camp, it is in direct conflict with the intere sts of the allied war effort (Khalidi 497).They wanted Palestine to be an Arab state and they felt that the McMahon-Hussein equilibrium had promised them that. They hoped to limit the number of Jews in Palestine to only those who were already there. The Jews argued that the White Paper violated promises made to them in the Balfour Declaration. Multiple standpoints existed within the Jewish community, from more moderate views to Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Partys radical opinions.