- White Paper Of 1939
- In the decades following Great Britain’s issuance of the Balfour Declaration and its legitimation by the League of Nations, violence between Jews and Arabs in Palestine grew in intensity, with the British mandatory government unable to find a formula for peace that would satisfy both sides. On the eve of World War II, British policy wavered in its support for a Jewish home in Palestine. Fearing that in a coming war with Germany the Arabs would side with their enemy, the British placated the Arabs by limiting Jewish immigration into Palestine in the hope of maintain ing their support, if not neutrality. The British government further believed that given Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitic policies, it could take Jewish support for granted.Beginning in 1937, the number of Jewish refugees issued visas to Palestine fell from a yearly average of between 6,800 and 8,400 to 3,286. The British White Paper of 1939 (also known as the MacDonald White Paper, after the British colonial secretary, Malcolm MacDonald) further curtailed Jewish immigration by limiting the number of Jews allowed to enter Palestine to 75,000 over a five-year period. In addition, the white paper called for the creation of an Arab state by 1949, a clear violation of the British mandate over Palestine. Thus, at a time when the issue of Jewish refugees from the Greater Reich had become a matter of international concern, the one haven available as an area of refuge for the unwanted Jews of Germany and Austria was subject to a quota of 5,000 Jews a year.
Historical dictionary of the Holocaust. Jack R. Fischel. 2014.
