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ANGLO-AMERICAN COMMITTEE |
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ANGLO-AMERICAN COMMITTEE |
Only one hundred thousand debilitated skeletons of European Jews were liberated from Hitler's camps at the end of World War II. To those 100,000 Jews there would soon be added another 100,000 - 150,000 Jews fleeing different parts of Eastern Europe that were under or about to come under Soviet control. What was to be done with these refugees?
For the Jewish refugees with Zionist convictions, who believed Zion was the only place where they would be both safe and fulfilled, Palestine was the obvious destination. Palestine was also the only practical option for most other Jewish refugees, Zionists or not, given the reluctance of Western countries at that time to resettle Jews. The only other option was repatriation to the countries from which the Jews had fled, an unacceptable option for the Jews.
But the way to Palestine was blocked by the determination of the Arabs, and their ally, Britain, in their combined fight to resist transferring the international responsibility for the remnants of European Jewry to Palestine.
The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was established in 1945 in order to review the issue of Jewish immigration to Palestine. US President Truman repeatedly called for the British to allow 100,000 Jewish refugees into Palestine. Responding to President Truman's pleas to admit more Jewish Displaced Persons to Palestine, British Prime Minister Attlee proposed a joint commission to study means of resolving the crisis. Many considered the committee to be a stalling tactic on the part of the British, who were not anxious to open the gates of Palestine so quickly. Truman therefore suggested limiting the timetable of the committee to four months.
The committee heard testimony from witnesses in Washington, London, Europe, and the Middle East. Pointing to unparalleled Jewish suffering in the Second World War the called for important changes in policy. The Zionists demanded the immediate establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. They echoed Truman's call for 100,000 certificates of immigration to be issued to Jewish refugees from Nazi-ravaged Europe. The Zionists also argued that the regulation of Jewish immigration should be transferred from the British to the Jewish Agency. One witness was Prof. Albert Einstein who appeared before the Committee and made a strong plea for a Jewish homeland.
The Arabs, on the other hand, called for the establishment of an independent Arab state, and end to Jewish immigration, and a cessation of all land sales to Jews, a position essentially unchanged for decades. But testimony did not support this Arab view. On the question of an Arab Palestine, the eminent Arab-American historian Philip Hitti made it clear to the commission that even Middle Eastern Arabs never thought of a separate Arab country in Palestine:
During the committee's investigations, they visited camps where Displaced Persons were being held. They questioned the survivors, asking "Where would you immigrate other than Palestine?". The most common answer was "crematoria." When asked why he wanted to go to Palestine, a 16-year old orphan who had survived Bergen-Belsen replied:
In May 1946, the Committee of Inquiry unanimously declared its opposition to the White Paper of 1939 and proposed, among other recommendations, that the immigration to Palestine of 100,000 European Jews be authorized at once. The celebrations that followed in the DP camps ended quickly, however. The British Mandate Authority rejected the proposal, stating that such immigration was impossible while armed organizations in Palestine-- both Arab and Jewish--were fighting the authority and disrupting public order.
Despite American, Jewish, and international pressure and the recommendations of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the new Labour Party government of Prime Minister Clement Atlee and his foreign minister, Ernest Bevin, continued to enforce the policy articulated in the White Paper.
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