White Paper of 1939

The White Paper of 1939 (also known as MacDonald White Paper) or by its official name "Palestine, Statement of Policy", is a policy document issued by the British government, led by Neville Chamberlain, in response to the 1936–1939 Arab terror campaign.

It was presented, by Colonies Minister Malcolm Macdonald in May 1939, issued to severely limit the immigration of the Jews and significantly limit the purchase of land Arab owned, in the hands of Jews.

White Paper of 1939

It is the "infamous 1939 White Paper, which limited Jewish immigration to just 75,000 souls for the next five years. This onerous and draconian policy, coming as it did on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, was a death blow to millions of Jews attempting to flee extermination by Nazi Germany."

It came after a bloody Arab terror campaign 1936-9, whereby various groups, more predominantly of genocidal Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al-Husseini, his gangs, waging a jihad against: (1) British police, (2) moderate Arabs and (3) racist-Arab attacks against any Jews.

The British government, decided the Peel Commission’s partition plan was no longer feasible and determined that a unitary state should be created in Palestine with a limit to Jewish immigration and land acquisition. The Jewish Agency for Palestine issued a scathing response to the White Paper, saying the British were denying the Jewish people their rights in the “darkest hour of Jewish history.”

The document was published on May 17, 1939 and approved by the House of Representatives on May 23 of the same year, with a majority of 281 against 181. The document was received with fury by the Jewish community in Israel who saw it as a betrayal of the British and a violation of their commitments as expressed in the Balfour Declaration. The document received the derogatory nicknames Sefer HaMa'al - The 'Book of Treachery' or the Black Book.

At the May 23, 1939 discussion, Winston Churchill ended his remarks by saying

I end upon the land of Palestine. It is strange indeed that we should turn away from our task in Palestine at the moment when, as the Secretary of State told us yesterday, the local disorders have been largely mastered. It is stranger still that we should turn away when the great experiment and bright dream, the historic dream, has proved its power to succeed. Yesterday the Minister responsible descanted eloquently in glowing passages upon the magnificent work which the Jewish colonists have done. They have made the desert bloom. They have started a score of thriving industries, he said. They have founded a great city on the barren shore. They have harnessed the Jordan and spread its electricity throughout the land. So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population. Now we are asked to decree that all this is to stop and all this is to come to an end. We are now asked to submit—and this is what rankles most with me—to an agitation which is fed with foreign money and ceaselessly inflamed by Nazi and by Fascist propaganda.

It is 20 years ago since my right hon. Friend used these stirring words: A great responsibility will rest upon the Zionists, who, before long, will be proceeding, with joy in their hearts, to the ancient seat of their people. Theirs will be the task to build up a new prosperity and a new civilisation in old Palestine, so long neglected and mis-ruled. Well, they have answered his call. They have fulfilled his hopes. How can he find it in his heart to strike them this mortal blow?

The restrictions on the purchase of the land were anchored in the Land Law published by the High Commissioner on February 28.

March 17, 1939:

A cable urging the British Government “not to betray the confidence of the Jewish people” with regard to Palestine was dispatched today by a conference of all Zionist parties together with the Agudath Israel, religious non-Zionist organization. The cable said: “In the darkest and most tragic hour of Jewish history, 3,500,000 Polish Jews appeal to the British Government not to betray the confidence of the Jewish people in Great Britain and not to destroy the sacred hopes of the Jewish people by adoption of a policy bound to drive them to despair.”

Polish Jews’ pre-Holocaust plea to Chamberlain: Let us into Palestine. In March 1939, weeks before the notorious White Paper

In 2019, the Telegram was uncovered, polish Jews’ pre-Holocaust plea to Chamberlain: Let us into Palestine. It was sent by both, non-Zionist/ultra-orthodox-Haredim and Zionists.<ref>Steven E. Zipperstein, Uncovered, Polish Jews’ pre-Holocaust plea to Chamberlain: Let us into Palestine, TOI, Jan 21, 2020.

In March 1939, weeks before the notorious White Paper, Polish Jewry sent London a desperate telegram, published here apparently for the first time. At terrible cost, it was ignored...

..."In the darkest and most tragic hour of Jewish history, three and a half million Polish Jews appeal to the British Government not to betray the confidence of the Jewish people in Great Britain and not to destroy the sacred hopes of the Jewish people by adoption of a policy bound to drive them to despair.."

The London Conference opened on February 7, 1939, at St. James’s Palace. Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, later the first president and first prime minister of the future State of Israel, respectively, led the Jewish delegation.

In his opening statement — made to the British Government and Jewish delegates only, as the Arab delegates refused to sit in the same room with the Jews — Weizmann stressed the extreme danger Hitler posed to European Jewry, prophetically noting “the fate of six million people was in the balance.”

But Weizmann’s warnings fell on deaf ears. By late February 1939, less than three weeks after the London Conference began, British officials began leaking to the press their intention to propose independence for Palestine in 10 years under majority Arab rule, along with immediate and severe limitations on Jewish immigration to Palestine.

‘The Arabs were jubilant about the proposals, the Jews cast down and bitter’

As the Times of London reported on February 28, 1939, “[t]he Arabs were jubilant about the proposals, the Jews cast down and bitter.” The same Chamberlain who foolishly believed appeasing Hitler represented the best way to keep the peace in Europe not surprisingly decided that appeasing the mufti was the best way to restore peace to Palestine.

By mid-March everyone realized Britain planned to close the doors of Palestine to all but a small trickle of Jewish immigrants. On March 15, 1939, the Times of London published additional leaked details of the British proposals for Palestine, including capping Jewish immigration at 15,000 per year for the next five years.

That same day, March 15, 1939, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, and German forces triumphantly marched into Prague.

References

"The Mufti.. concocted a new kind of antisemitism that combined traditional Muslim antisemitism, like the anti-Jewish verses you find in the Koran, with the Nazi antisemitism that demonised Jews... His whole ideology was antisemitic and from the very beginning he targeted Jews, not Zionists."

The difference between lies and reality is sometimes just a color on a map

Lord Peel to W. Ormsby-Gore as he was preparing the royal commission report, "Though I knew there was ill-feeling between Jews and Arabs, I had not realized the depth and intensity of the hatred with which the Jews are held by the Arabs..."

"It is not Israel's settlement blocks but rather the Palestinian ideological blockade that constitutes the biggest barrier to peaceful arrangements . The Jew-hatred in this region must no longer be played down as a kind of local custom ..."

The only tweet (July 2014) on the Twitter account of the late American Elan Ganeles - murdered by Arab-Islamist "Palestinian" on Feb 27, 2023 hy"d: "I think you're always going to have tension in the Middle East, when there's [are] people who want to kill Jews, and the Jews don't want to be killed, and neither side is willing to compromise."