McDonald White Paper of 1939

	MCDONALD WHITE PAPER

What was the McDonald White Paper of 1939?

In 1939 the British called for a conference of Arabs and Jews to discuss various scenarios. The St. James Conference, also known as the Round Table Conference of 1939, brought together Arab and Jewish delegations, each with their own internal differences. On the Jewish side, both Zionist and non-Zionist groups within the Jewish Agency attended, organized under the leadership of Chaim Weizmann. The Arabs were led by the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, and included the more moderate party of the well-known al-Nashashibi family. In addition to the Arabs of Palestine, the Arabs of Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan, and Yemen were also represented.

From the start, the conference was fraught with difficulties. The Arab delegates refused to meet directly and formally with the Jewish representatives, since they did not recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish Agency. As a result, the British were forced to negotiate with each delegation individually. British proposals at the conference were met with resistance on both sides. Since no agreement was reached, the British formed their own policy.

The British White Paper of 1939 (also known as Parliamentary Document 6019 or the McDonald White Paper, after British Colonial Secretary Malcom McDonald) was a statement of policy issued by the British in the wake of the St. James Conference. As the Conference failed to produce any realistic formulations for peace in Palestine, the British decided upon a new strategy for the handling the volatile situation in the region. In this new statement of policy, the British made concessions to the Arabs on a wide range of issues. It was tantamount to a death sentence for countless European Jews.

The British commitment to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, dating back to 1917, was severely compromised by this policy statement. While it may have mollified Arab opinion, as intended, it certainly alienated Zionist Jews as its enforcement prevented the free settlement of refugees who desperately needed to leave Europe but had few other choices of destination. Yet as long as Hitler remained the common enemy of Jews and the British, differences were muted. Jewish enlistments in British armed forces were heavier and their performance better than those from the Arab populations.

In the 1939 White Paper, the limitation on Jewish immigration was made permanent. Seventy-five thousand Jewish immigrants would be allowed to enter Palestine over a five year period and any subsequent increase would require the acquiescence of the Arabs. The British repudiated the Balfour Declaration and their commitments under the League of Nations just at the time of greatest need for a sanctuary for Jewish refugees. The issue was no longer merely an opportunity for Jewish immigration and national aspirations. The Jews were desperate. The British denied the Jews a haven from Nazi atrocities they so desperately needed at the time, though Britain did not endorse the principle of self determination of the majority.

The provisions of the White Paper clearly put Britain in violation of the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. However, the League of Nations made no real effort to withdraw the legal Mandate from Britain or even to suggest a moral censure. Nor could such be expected to have been made given the depths to which the League had sunk by 1939. However, in the report of the Permanent Mandates Commission to the Council of the League, the Commission unanimously stated 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.

With the outbreak of World War II, the report and the League itself became irrelevant and the White Paper remained the basis of British policy until the end of the Mandate. The White Paper decrees were rescinded by the first action of the Provisional Council of State on May 15, 1948, when the State of Israel was established.

The key provisions of the White Paper of 1939 were:

It is not British policy that Palestine should become a Jewish State.
British policy is that the whole of Palestine west of the Jordan River was excluded from the pledges in the McMahon correspondence; therefore it is not British policy that Palestine should be converted into an Arab State.
After a transitional period, Britain forsees the establishment within 10 years of an independent Palestine State in which Arabs and Jews share government in such a way as to ensure that the essential interests of each community are afeguarded.
Due to intense Arab apprehension about Jewish immigration, further admission of Jewish immigrants will be limited to 75,000 over the next five years so that the number of Jews in the country would not exceed one-third of the total population. This total will consist of 10,000 per year plus 25,000 refugees.
Transfers of land from Arabs to Jews will be severely restricted in most areas of the country.

The Jews of Palestine and the rest of the Jewish world were outraged at this British betrayal. Despite the heavily pro-Arab nature of the White Paper, the Arabs rejected it on the grounds that it did not go far enough, and launched a widespread campaign of violence against the Yishuv.

What was the McDonald White Paper of 1939?

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