Talk:White Paper of 1939

Moved from wrong place above
This article is very interesting. It's related to many articles around Wikipedia but I decided not to spam and to notify about it in just one place. I hope someone picks it up. --Anton Adelson, Western Australia 01:02, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Related pages
If anyone's especially knowledgable in this area can they take a look at both Malcolm MacDonald and Neville Chamberlain to see if the relevant text needs modification. Timrollpickering 20:36, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Abolition
On May 15, 1948, the government of the new state of Israel issued an injunction officially abolishing the White Paper.

Did it actually have the legal authority to rescind it? Timrollpickering 13:11, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I suppose that depends who you ask. The leaders of the then one-day-old state of Israel interpreted the United Nations decision of November 29, 1947 as giving them jurisdiction over the territory formerly known as Palestine (see Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel). Several Arab leaders in the area felt differently, and responded by invading Israel (see 1948 Arab-Israeli War). Read your history and judge for yourself. There are no easy answers. --Woggly 10:25, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * After May 14, 1948, Israel was a sovereign state. It had complete control over who entered its territory. It didn't matter what the Arab States thought. They had no status to object other than as members of the United Nations which itself lost its authority the moment it adopted the Partition Resolution.Scott Adler 12:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually yes they did. The Nazis had complete control over all of France at one point, but I think De Gaulle still had grounds to object. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.180.61.194 (talk) 03:24, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

One of the consequence of the British White Papers was that European Jews were barred from entering Palestine. Had Churchill allowed Jewish immigration, the Holocaust may have been averted. I think it would be appropriate if this article broached this important consequence.


 * One might then point out that a simpler way to avert the Holocaust would be if Churchill allowed Jewish immigration into Great Britain itself, then forbidden. Or perhaps convince his friend President Roosevelt to raise the very strict (6,000/year) quota on Jewish immigration into the United States (a much larger country than Palestine, with far greater resources, and with no groups actively calling for its permanent transformation into a Jewish Commonwealth).Brian Tvedt 01:42, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Simpler? Duh -- Without the White Paper in force, entry into Palestine would have required nothing more than a train ticket through Turkey and Syria. With the White Paper, they were stuck behind German lines. This was especially tragic for the Jews of Greece and Romania. The White Paper probably killed 250,000 people. Regarding the idea that the Jews should have gone to the UK or the US, there was something called World War Two in the way. German wolf packs patroled the Med and the Atlantic. But Palestine was simply a train ride from Istanbul. Besides, the League of Nations had opened Jewish immigration to Palestine as a legal condition of the Mandate. Britain was not a colonial power in Palestine, but a Mandatory power, it was not sovereign, it had no authority to restrict Jewish immigration.Scott Adler 12:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

To return to the original quote - Neither the government of Israel not anyone else other than the UK parliament can abolish any act of that Parliament, including this White Paper. Shouldn't it say that Israel issued an injunction the effects of the White Paper would no longer be applied there Emeraude 15:09, 14 October 2006 (UTC)?


 * First, the Provisional Government did not issue an Injunction. An injunction is a legal term, a civil court order forbidding a specific action, such as a strike. The Provisional Government simply rescinded the White Paper. It did this because it already had a legal system in place created by Ottoman and British rulers. The White Paper was on the books. After it was rescinded, it wasn't.Scott Adler 00:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The White Paper was a policy paper produced after an enquiry was carried out in the wake of the Arab Revolt. Of course, you cannot abolish a policy paper, only the regulations stemming from it which were in force in the Palestine area. Note that Churchill did not become Prime Minister until 1940, after the war had started, and, though being Prime Minister, wasn't a party leader, which limited his scope of action in areas like Jewish immigration in Palestine (see Churchill and the Holocaust by Martin Gilbert). Churchill, though an old-fashioned racist when it came to Indians and Arabs (he made a famous comment about Arabs being eaters of camel dung), was very pro-Semitic (presumably, since he was a racist otherwise, because he was Jewish on his mother's side) and pro-Zionist and did intervene to allow Jewish refugees to remain in Palestine who would otherwise have been deported. If unrestricted Jewish immigration had been allowed into Palestine during the war (and note that immigration was restricted, not totally stopped), the chances are that there would have been a renewal of the kinds of action taken by Arabs during the Revolt, the outcome that the White paper was trying to forestall. The question of where Jews could flee to before and during the war is one that I have never seen fully answered. It is common knowledge that Jewish immigration to the United States was severely restricted. Britain restricted Jewish immigration (at least partly because there was a fear that German agents would enter the country disguised as refugees), though reportedly, pro rata-ed, accepted more Jewish refugees than anywhere else, including the Kindertransport (which Ben Gurion opposed) children. Does anyone know what the situation was elsewhere in Europe, North and South America, the Soviet Union, Asia and India, Africa, Australia and New Zealand? Britain transported Jewish refugees intercepted on their way to Palestine who did not have entry visas, to places like Mauritius and (I am assuming) Cyprus. So that Spain would accept more Jewish refugees, the United States and Britain moved some of those already there to North Africa(?). -- ZScarpia (talk) 17:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

My uncle escaped from Austria to Lithuania and when the USSR occupied Lithuania he was sent to the Gulag as an enemy alien (5 years hard labour) so that perhaps answers for the USSR. I know that Jews could not enter countries unless they had a transit visa, so you could not just get up and go, you needed visas for eveyr country on the way (peopel didn't usually fly in those days). My father required a trasnit visa for Britsian so he could go to the USA but the it was only issued after a question was aksked in parliament by Josiah Wedgewood which must have required a lto of connections. I own a limited edition copy of a the diary of a man who was sent to Mauritius (he died there) and describes how they were treated by the countries they passed through on the way out. At one point, in Hungary or Romania they (I think it was a group of a couple of hundred) were held for six months in a basketball court with one toilet and not allowed to leave (the court) becuase they lacked proper papers. Local Jews paid for their food. I think Jews were often regarded as physcially dangerous at that time. The British Empire was closed as far as I know though a few Jews made it to India. British empirial administrators regarded JEws as troublesome and criminal so they didn't want them. Shanghai was another relatively popular destination but I suppse you needed a lot fo money, connections and perhaps courage to amke it out there. Many people didn't appreciate the danger of staying. Holland and France took in quite a few but it didn't help them. I think Arthur Koestler was in camps in France and Holland where Jews were held as illegal immigrants. The British held legal Jewish migrants from Germany on the isle of Wight for a few years. Some amde it to South America - Claude Levi Strauss describes getting on a boat to Latin America amid heavy security because they were Jews. But the American countries closed their doors when they realized how many would be coming and bbecause like veryone else they bought into Nazi propganada about Jews being dangerous. My father's cousin got into Switzerland by threatening to put a curse on the border guard if he didn't admit him.

Telaviv1 (talk) 09:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for answering. That was very interesting. During the inter-war period, Stalin offered to create a Jewish National Home didn't he? It doesn't really surprise me that there wasn't a huge rush to accept his offer. From what I remember, Begin tried to escape to Palestine from Poland, but was refused entry to one of the countries en-route as well. When the Soviets occupied the area allotted to them under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, he was sent to Siberia, to be released as part of the Anders Army sent to Palestine when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. -- ZScarpia (talk) 16:43, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Jewish Autonomous Oblast. the Nazis suggested Madagascar Madagascar Plan. Molotov suggested the Crimea in the forties. Madagascar sounds better then Birobidjan. Telaviv1 (talk) 10:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * On the subject of admission of refugees in Britain itself (please excuse me blowing a trumpet on behalf of my own country), Conor Cruise O'Brien writes in The Siege, p233:
 * The outside world, while shocked by Nazi atrocities, did little to help the victims. A conference of thiry-one countries, which met at Evian in early July did no more than confirm the validity of Weizmann's diagnosis, before the Peel Commission, of the condition of the European Jews in the late thirties: ... the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places into which they cannot enter." Palestine was excluded from the Evian agenda at the insistence of the British Government ....  (But Britain admitted more Jews to its home territory, in proportion to size and population, than did any other country, including my own, Ireland.)
 * -- ZScarpia (talk) 03:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

2.nd sentence in 2.nd paragraph
It goes like this: "Previous White Papers had reinterpreted the Balfour Declaration, 1917 and declared that Britain did not intend to build an independent Jewish state in Palestine."

I find this sentence most confusing. Some information must be missing. As it stands now, it sounds as if the Balfour Declaration, 1917 states that it supported the building of  an "independent Jewish state in Palestine". Which the Balfour Declaration, 1917 most certainly does not. Does anybody know anything about these previous "White Papers"? Some clarification is needed here. Thanks. Huldra 19:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


 * It's probably a reference to the Churchill White Paper of 1922, which is reprinted in the Laquer/Rubin Israel-Arab Reader. I think there were some other white papers as well.  Basically any memorandum from the British Foreign Ministry was called a white paper; "the" white paper means the one discussed in this article.  The sentence in the article is just wrong; as you point out, the Balfour declaration says nothing about a "state", it only refers to a "national home".  This part of the article needs to be fixed. Brian Tvedt 22:56, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Something as simple as "Previous White Papers had elaborated on the 1917 Balfour Declaration by pointing out that Britain did not endorse actual Jewish statehood." ?? Ramallite (talk) 03:08, 7 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think that was a definite improvement, but I still would like some more detail as to these "elaborations" and exactly what they consisted of. It seems like different people read very, very different things into the different Declarations.
 * Also: why do all articles here stress that the White Paper of 1939 was "unilaterally conceived by the British"? ...The word "unilateral" is never mentioned in connection with the Balfour 1917 Declaration, -and wasn´t that declaration just as "unilateral"? (Except for agreeing with a private zionist organization). It seems to me this isn´t a very NPOV editing: Unless we/somebody can show that the Balfour 1917 Declaration was based on a broader international consensus than the White Paper of 1939, I think we should remove the word "unilateral" here (or insert it in all references to the Balfour 1917 Declaration... I think I would prefer removing it here.) Huldra 01:54, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Balfours intention was to create a Jewish state on all of Palestine. It is a common mistake to use 'in Palestine' as meaning just a part of the whole. But 90 years ago the meaning was clear. This has been confirmed by Balfours grandson who presented the facts at Balfour House in London. I was in attendance at the presentation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.30.19.245 (talk) 12:26, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Balfours intention is irrelevant as Balfour was not the sole author of the Balfour declaration. The text was drafted in several stages based on input from several notable people (e.g. Chaim Weizmann). Every word in the declaration was very carefully considered. If the authors intended their text to unambigously refer to the whole of Palestine then that it is what they would have written. --Frederico1234 (talk) 12:49, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The White Paper was Illegal under International Law
The British Mandate in Palestine required that every change in British policy towards its mandate had to be approved by the League of Nations. When the British government submitted the 1939 White Paper for approval by the overseeing authority, the League's Mandates Commission, that approval was refused. The commission declared that thew White Paper did not conform to the Mandate, which was the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In consequence, the White Paper never became binding law. This is crucial information ignored in this article. Guy Montag 05:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It was to establish a Jewish NATIONAL HOMELAND, not a STATE. It also said "it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine(over 99% of the country), or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.180.61.194 (talk) 03:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)


 * There's some truth in this. After the White Paper was submitted to the Permanent Mandates Commission in June 1939 the members advised the Council that the policy set out in the paper was not in accordance with the Commission's interpretation of the Mandate. However, the Commission decided to hand over the final decision to the next meeting of the Council of the League, which was due in September. Owing to WWII the Council never met again. Some of the article is unsourced propaganda. --Ian Pitchford 20:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Since the Council never met, the previous decision stands. Guy Montag 22:27, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * According to? --Ian Pitchford 17:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

In May 1939 the League of Nations had no authority worth speaking of and "internaitonal law" was largely the rule of the strongest. No one challenged the laws in a british court but had they done so a court would undoubtably have upheld the British government. Telaviv1 13:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

{Jonathan, I hope I got my facts right this time} On the question of the legality of the White Paper, I think that it's worth pointing out that the only one of its provisions to be enacted was the one on immigration numbers. When considering the legality of the White Paper, since only the one provision was enacted, the only non-academic part of the exercise is determining whether the immigration quota imposed was legal or not. Conor Cruise O'Brien, in The Siege, writes:
 * The legality of the White Paper, in terms of the Mandate, was open to question, and was hotly debated by the Jews. The Permanent Mandates Commission, reporting to the Council of the League, found unanimously "that the policy set out in the White Paper was not in accordance with the interpretation which, in agreement with the Mandatory Power and the Council, the Commission had placed upon the Palestine Mandate." The Council's consent was required, under Article 27 of the Mandate, for any change in its terms. But the outbreak of war put an end to the League's active life, and the Council never met to consider the matter. After the war, the Charter of the United Nations (Article 79) provided that the status of the existing Mandates should be decided by the Mandatory, "in conjunction with the states directly concerned." Probably by no coincidence, this proviso favoured a continuation, or extension, of the White Paper policy - taking "the states directly concerned" as the participants in the 1939 conference in St. James's Palace.

-- ZScarpia (talk) 13:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Article 5 of the Covenant of the League of Nations provided that: "Except where otherwise expressly provided in this Covenant or by the terms of the present Treaty, decisions at any meeting of the Assembly or of the Council shall require the agreement of all the Members of the League represented at the meeting." The French and British had carried out air raids against the inhabitants under their tutelage in the past, and in each instance they successfully blocked any action. see for example The Meaning of the Mandates System


 * Immigration had always been subject to "suitable conditions", but the land transfer regulations were certainly incompatible with Great Britain's obligations under article 15 of the Mandate: "The Mandatory shall see that... ...No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of Palestine on the ground of race, religion or language."


 * The White Paper declared that the National Home was an accomplished fact, but the Jewish Agency disagreed. One man's right usually implies another man's obligation. The UNSCOP Commission was chaired by a former Justice of the International Court of Arbitration. There were three other members who were Supreme or High Court justices. The Ad Hoc Committee was also chaired by a Supreme Court Justice. They all looked into the obligations arising from Britain's "National Home" undertaking, but they determined it had no definite meaning or scope in international law, and that no definition had been supplied in either the text of the Balfour Declaration or the Mandate itself. see their report A/364 para 147


 * There are some details missing from your sources regarding the 1939 White Paper, and the legal effects it had on other international undertakings. For example, UN Resolution 181 authorized the Secretary-General to draw 2,000,000 dollars from the working fund and made the successor states responsible for the financial obligations "of whatever nature" assumed on behalf of Palestine by the mandatory Power during the exercise of the Mandate. Great Britain promptly notified the Palestine Commission that it had been "compelled to commit itself to further expenditures of its resources on deportations and the maintenance of camps in Cyprus, costing in 1946 and 1947 a sum that may amount to £3 million". When they presented their bill for payment, the Secretariat prepared a confidential background paper that provides many of the details you are discussing with regard to the LoN Mandate Commission and the various positions on the legality of the White Paper's policies. The Provisional Council of Israel's first constitutional act was a Proclamation that "All legislation resulting from the British Government's White Paper of May, 1939, will at midnight tonight become null and void. This includes the immigration provisions as well as the land transfer regulations of February, 1940."


 * The legal status of the mandates was a topic of debate for decades. It wasn't finally resolved until the UN-era ICJ took-up the South West Africa Mandate cases and ruled they were composite international legal instruments that were part constitutional convention and part international treaty. At the time it was founded, the League of Nations was not viewed as a "person of international law". That meant it could not conclude its own international agreements. That's the reason the Supreme War Council of "the Principal Allied Powers" drafted the terms, and conferred each of the mandates. They were administered "on behalf of the League", and were not valid until they were approved by a resolution of the Council. The Covenant didn't mention resolutions at all, so the notion that they were legally binding rested on an argument from silence. The only time the PCIJ had an opportunity to rule on the binding strength of a Council resolution, it avoided the issue altogether and applied the contract law theory of "acceptance" instead. See the discussion at mid-page regarding the Railway Traffic case. By way of comparison, the General Assembly always had the capacity under the Charter to conclude alter or amend trusteeship agreements (article 85) and administer territories directly (article 81). The United Nations was recognized as a person of international law with the necessary legal authority to fulfill its functions and purposes (Article 104), and the capacity to press claims and deploy forces in non-member states, see the Bernadotte "Reparations" opinion.


 * The United States entered into bilateral treaty agreements with each mandatory to secure its interests. The US Palestine Mandate Convention contained a complete recitation of the text of the LoN mandate, plus eight amendments. One of those required that the US be furnished an annual report and another stipulated that "Nothing contained in the present convention shall be affected by any modification which may be made in the terms of the mandate, as recited above, unless such modifications shall have been assented to by the United States." The mandate convention survived the dissolution of the LoN, and made the United States Britain's partner as one of "the states directly concerned".


 * For example, in 1925 the US expressed its dissatisfaction with a decision relating to the Iraq Mandate: "You will recall the exchange of communications regarding Palestine and the view which we have held consistently that this Government has a right to be consulted regarding dispositions made with respect to territories under mandate." That treaty obligation still applied in 1945. The requirement that the US be consulted led to its participation in the Anglo-American Commission, the development of the Grady Morrison Plan, and Truman's backing of the immediate issuance of 100,000 immigration certificates.


 * The negotiating history behind Article 80 of the UN Charter, indicates that it was developed as a "status quo" agreement with respect to the Palestine mandate. It was included at the insistence of the Arab League. They were afraid the 1939 White Paper policy would be relaxed. See the discussion on this and the following page under the heading Palestine. The scope of Article 80 was intentionally limited by including the phrase "nothing in this chapter" (XII) and placing everything that rendered it moot elswhere in the Charter. For example, during the first session General Assembly resolution 9(1) called for the states administering territories held under mandate to take immediate steps to put them under trusteeship. At the same time, the resolution drew attention to the fact that the treaty obligations under Chapter XI that had been accepted by all members were in no way contingent on the conclusion of trusteeship agreements, and that they were already in full force. harlan (talk) 15:50, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Harlan, many thanks (and, just in case I need it, how much do you charge for legal advice?). -- ZScarpia (talk) 16:18, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Major Reordering, & elaborating
I have now reordered the text into 3 parts: what came before the White Paper of 1939, the White Paper itself, and, finally: the reaction to it. I have particulary expanded Part 2: White Paper itself. After all: that is what this article is about! -There is still work to do; in the 3.rd part it says both that the the plans were dropped the following year...and that they brought tensions over immigration at the end of WWII (!) -need to clarify which parts were dropped  Huldra 06:30, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

-Also: what about Arab/Palestinian reactions? They should of course also be quoted (like the Jewish/Zionist reaction). However, I do not have any ref. about their reaction easily available; I hope somebody who does will add the information. Huldra 13:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)


 * The Palestinian leadership joined the Axis. Their leader, the Grand Mufti, went to Baghdad, then to Berlin. So, their reaction was likely in this context.Scott Adler 01:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Edit
I have tightened the text up, and eliminated material either POV, erroneous,  deriving from unreliable sources, or stating as an objective fact what is a partisan opinion. E.g.

'The White Paper of 1939, indirectly, made a major contribution to the Holocaust by severely restricting Jewish entry to Palestine. After the Second World War it resulted in violent conflict between the Zionist movement in Palestine and British Government.

The second part is also untrue, since it refers to actions that began to assume greater force after the White Paper, not after WW2 (Jewish terrorism against the Mandatory authorities), etc.Nishidani 10:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Introduction
Since the introduction is controversial I suggest debating it before making changes. Telaviv1 09:35, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


 * No problem. As the remark was placed, it was a private editorial opinion (POV), since no source was given, and thus had no place on the page.Nishidani 11:06, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Introduction revisited and other notes
The lead section says that, in the White Paper, the idea of partitioning the Mandate for Palestine was abandoned. However, partitioning Palestine had never been the intention. What had been the intention, after the splitting off of Transjordan, was the settling of immigrant Jews in the remaining area until they outnumbered the non-Jewish population, at which point the Mandate would have been terminated and a state (with or without any ties to Britain) created. There are a lot of disagreements over what exactly had been intended by the creation of a Jewish Homeland. It is quite clear that British Government officials including Lloyd George and Balfour (and probably Churchill) and Zionists with whom they were liaising such as Weizmann (backed by Louis Brandeis in the United States) intended the creation of Jewish-controlled state, not an entity such as some kind of protectorate. The White Paper said, "His Majesty's Government believe that the framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population of the country." Leading members of the British Government did intend the creation of a "Jewish State" and, Balfour at least, knew that it would be resisted by the existing arab population (and a significant part of the existing Jewish population) of Palestine. As the intention was to create a state, the Declaration, which was drafted (through many versions) by those around Weizmann and was approved beforehand by the governments of countries such as the United States and France, deliberately omitted to mention the national rights of the Arabs from the list of those given, though it is often assumed that these were supposed to have been covered by the mention of civil rights. According to what I have read, the phrase Jewish National Home has an interesting provenance; it was used by the Zionist leaders to reassure and gain the support of Jews who believed the creation of a Jewish state, as such, wrong and later served the same purpose among those involved in negotiating the wording of the Declaration and its later adoption by the League of Nations. It was during the time of the first High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, that specific immigration quotas for Jews were imposed, because it was known that, if limitless immigration was allowed, Arabs would demand the same "right". After the Arab Revolt and its brutal suppression, it was finally accepted that it would not be possible to impose the creation of a Jewish state other than by force of arms, a step that the British were not prepared to take and the reason why the members of the inquiry carried out after the ending of the Revolt advanced the recommendations given in the White Paper that immigration of Jews be radically reduced. -- ZScarpia (talk) 16:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The idea of partition was suggested in the Peel Report (1936 or 7) and the details worked out in the Woodhead report. The British were definitely discussing partition. The stuff you have up there relates to the twenties and is irrelevant for the late thrities. Herbert Samuel left Palestine in 1925. While it was in his time that immigraiton quotas were imposed they were imposed by Churchill in his capacity as Minister for Colonial affairs (or something like that).

I agree that the Arab revolt led them to feel that the Arabs were likely to cause trouble while the Jews weren't so they worried more about the Arab response. I think the British also thought Jews had no ability to "fight" while they had an exaggerated and romantic (thanks to Lawrence of Arabia) notion of Arab fighting ability. The Jewish legion was used in the first world war for minor jobs devoid of "honour" and got no credit for its exploits. Telaviv1 (talk) 10:36, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank-you for reminding me about the Peel Commission Report of July 1937, which recommended partition. So, the recommendation being accepted in principle, the partition of Palestine did become Government policy in for a short while. My apologies. The Woodhead Commission, a commision of inquiry assembled to examine how the Peel Commission recommendations could be put into practice, reached the conclusion, reported in the Palestine Partition Report of 1938, that partition could not be put into practice, though.
 * {from One Palestine, Complete by Tom Segev, Chapter 19, pp413} "The British dismantled the partition plan just as they had created it, with the ritual procedure of a commission of inquiry. The Woodhead Commission heard many witnesses and put together a fine book, 310 pages long, full of useful information and wise evaluations. The commission was charged to examine how it's predecessors recommendations might be carried out. Inevitably the commission reached the conclusion that partition could not be implemented because the Jews and Arabs did not want it."

Although the Government quickly abandoned the intention to partition, it can be said that the White Paper was the official announcement of that. -- ZScarpia (talk) 02:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I've added a mention in the Lead section that the partition idea was a recommendation of the Peel Commission Report, hoping that the change will be alright with you. Lower down, I wondered whether anything should be added to the description of the Woodhead Commission Report. What do you think? -- ZScarpia (talk) 02:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can remember Segev's verison of events is wrong. Woodhead did not reject partition it provided a suggestion for how it owuld take place. It just wasn;t practical. The original Peel proposal included removal of Arabs from Jews areas and vice versa. woodhead tried to minimize the damage which made the plan impractical. For example Jaffa was left as an enclave inside Tel-Aviv and its environs. But to remove arabs from Jaffa would have been very traumatic and they would have had to move over 100,000 people so you can see why they didn't take it on. the result is that that some streets were in "Palestine" and others in "Israel". Incidentally the same was true of the UN partition plan. The decision not to implement it was (as far as I know) the result of a debate in parliament where Churchill ridiculed the woodhead proposals. If churchill had backed it they might have tried to implement it. It was probably worth a try.

Telaviv1 (talk) 08:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The danger of using one source! -- ZScarpia (talk) 11:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

your changes to the intro seem like an improvement. thanks.

Jonathan Telaviv1 (talk) 08:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

the rest of Czechoslovakia occupied in 1939
"The White Paper was approved by Parliament in May 1939, a few weeks after Britain agreed to Germany annexing the rest of Czechoslavakia" The British did not "agree" to this very rapid annexation, but unfortunately they could do nothing to stop it. In fact Britain prepared for war afterwards. Is it relevant here, beyond the coincidence of dates?86.44.156.195 (talk) 11:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll correct the error. It is relevant because every expansion of German control resulted in an increase in Jews heading for Palestine. The White Paper sought to prevent this. The correspondence between the dates is also significant. Telaviv1 (talk) 12:52, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Unacceptable text
Here is some text I removed, with my reasons for doing so inserted in orange.
 * It should be noted that some of the claims made in this section were not true. [We are not allowed to make statements like that; we are only allowed to cite reliable sources as making them. But neither of the sources makes that statement.] Jewish migration had resulted in a major economic boom in Palestine and caused non-Jewish (Arab) migration into the country which only ended due to the Arab revolt.  Jewish migration was exclusively funded from taxation paid by the Jewish population [Did the British administration keep Jewish taxes separate from other taxes?  Who says?  Anyway, it is OR to say taxes are relevant. Our WP extract doesn't even mention taxes.], whose (ample) ["ample" is an opinion; whose?] taxes were also used to fund the British forces in Palestine and to help improve economic conditions for the Arab population. [Relevance is OR, leaving aside the obvious POV problem.] After 1945, Jewish aid made Palestine the largest single importer of dollars in the entire British Empire (outside of Britain) [Since Palestine was never in the British Empire at all, this statement is nonsense.].

Zerotalk 10:13, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

If there was a boom during the peak of Jewish migration then the White Paper text is not true. The phrasing can be changed to make it more precise. The British were meticulous about keep separate statistics for the two communities (true some areas of taxation were problematic) and the survey of Palestine Volume II page 572 gives a breakdown of income taxes for 1944-5:Jews 1.9 million palestine pounds and Arabs 409,000. The issue of income vs expendture for the two communities was frequently raised as part of the political debate of the time.

However, on reflection I think I will insert any material about the economy in the general history section above where it is liley to be less controversial. Telaviv1 (talk) 11:14, 21 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The fact remains that you are not allowed to develop your own case against the White Paper. It is a clear violation of WP:OR. Zerotalk 09:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Problematic sentences

 * "The Arab Higher Committee argued that the independence of a future Palestine Government would prove to be illusory, as the Jews could prevent its functioning by withholding participation, and in any case real authority would still be in the hands of British officials." --This needs a source, but anyway I don't see the sense in it. I suspect it refers to the transitional period before independence. Zerotalk 09:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * "By the autumn of 1943, it was discovered that only 44,000 of the 75,000 promised certificates had been issued, and the British authorities ruled that the remaining 31,000 passes could be used immediately. By the end of the following year, the whole quota had been exhausted." --This also needs a source, and it is also odd. Who discovered it, and why didn't they know before? To see that this matters, realise that the British did not assign immigration certificates themselves. They gave them to the Jewish Agency for distribution. Also, who got the 31,000 passes?  Getting Jews out of Europe was close to impossible by 1943 so the only possibilities were Jews in Palestine illegally and those in camps like Mauritius.  Or maybe this story is incorrect. Zerotalk 09:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)  According to R. Ovendale, The Palestine Policy of the British Labour Government 1945-1946, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 55, 409-431, there were 3000 certificates remaining by 1945 out of the 75,000. This contradicts the story. Zerotalk 09:45, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I found the real story which is somewhat different and will insert it. Zerotalk 08:05, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Well done, however in April 1944 Lord Moyne was still trying to prevent Jews from being helped to reach Palestine. Telaviv1 (talk) 09:27, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.......this term is used liberally, and given that under the San Remo Treaty Jewish immigration and settlement was to be encouraged by Britain it cannot be said to be illegal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.30.26.131 (talk) 15:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

explanation of changes

 * "The White Paper was published [on Kristallnacht]" - this historical coincidence is only there to sneak in a POV. It has to have a citation to a reliable source saying that the coincidence is significant. Zerotalk 22:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * "The commission did not examine the pressures on Europe's Jews and the causes of Jewish migration." - this uncited claim is entirely false since evidence was heard on the subject and the report has a summary of the position of Jews in Europe and Russia from medieval times to the present. Zerotalk 22:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Evian conference : "however no Jewish representatives were invited" - entirely false, see Evian Conference for a list. "The Nazis responded to the failure in late 1938 with a plan to ship Europe's Jews to Madagascar. This was a revival of a 1937 Polish proposal ." - the source does not mention the Evian conference, so it does not support this text; also the Madagascar plan had no impact on anything and its relevance to this article is not established. Zerotalk 22:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. There are three principle POVs involved, a Palestinian (Arab) one, a Zionist (Jewish) POV and the British. To be neutral the text must fairly represent these perspectives. I can't speak for the Arab perspective but I don't feel the Jewish perspective is sufficiently shown here. The coincidence regarding Krytallnacht is significant, though it is fair to state that it is a concidence, because it demonstrates the linkage between the possibility of creating haven in Palestine and the situation in Europe.

The White Paper was addressing the possibility of Palestine serving asa solution to the "Jewish Quesiotn" and saying it wasn't. So alternative solutions seem relevant and the fact that the "Question" itself was not addressed remains. I will check the reports when I have the time, but regardless of what is in them, the participants did not travel to Eastern Europe and an examination of causes of Jewish migraiton was not part of their remit - unlike the later anglo amiercan committee where it had a dramatic impact on the proposals.

Telaviv1 (talk) 10:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Just to say that the second sentence of the article is self contradictory and confusing. Remove the phrase "Jewish national home" from the 1st half of the sentence and it will become true. thanks```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.159.217.219 (talk) 20:24, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Relevant RFM proposal
The article One Million Plan was proposed to be merged into Aliyah Bet, please discuss it at talk:Aliyah Bet.GreyShark (dibra) 16:25, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

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"Meanwhile, the Mandate was referred to the United Nations." The UN did not exist in '39
The text of the first paragraph mentions the UN which did not exist in 1939. The word meanwhile implies this happened in 1939, which is impossible. I don't have a suggestion but the sentence should be removed, maybe adding an 'aftermath' type section where the source cited could be used. Geo8rge (talk) 06:34, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It is in reference to the time period 1939 to 1948, not specifically to 1939. I think it is ok. Zerotalk 07:48, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Biased, incorrect sentence
The sentence: "Vociferously rejected by the Arabs, accepted as a basis for future negotiations by the Jews, the Peel Commission failed to stem the violence." Is undue editorializing: the use of "vociferously" is unneeded, particularly given that some Arabs did support the Peel initiative. Peel was also rejected by the Jewish Conference. The claim that it was "accepted as the basis for future negotiations" is irrelevant. The sentence should read: "The Peel Commission proposal was rejected by both the Jews and the Arabs and failed to stem the violence." Mcdruid (talk) 02:49, 19 January 2021 (UTC)


 * In fact "accepted as the basis for future negotiations" is false. See File:ZionistCongressPeelResolution.png for the actual resolution. There is no acceptance at all there, only rejection. Unfortunately many authors misrepresent the call for negotiations as a partial acceptance, but nothing in the resolution says that. Zerotalk 11:16, 19 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I edited in the most recent source from Peel Commission.Selfstudier (talk) 14:49, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Your edit is still incorrect. The Jews unambiguously rejected the Peel proposal: "6. The Congress declares that the scheme of partition put forward by the Royal Commission is unacceptable." Mcdruid (talk) 07:42, 23 January 2021 (UTC)