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Lot 2400
Palestine Statement of Policy - The White Paper of 1939. Palestine Statement of Policy. London: HMSO, 1939, 9½ x 6", 12pp. Stapled self-wrappers; lightly toned, small edge split, numerals in Arabic and English at upper right title page. One of only 1500 copies. Also known as The MacDonald White Paper after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary who presided over its creation.
The rise of Nazi Germany and the passing of the 1936 Nuremberg Laws, which stripped 500,000 German Jews of their citizenship, caused growing numbers of Jews to emigrate to Palestine. The Arab revolt in Palestine (1936-1939) was fueled by Palestinian Arab concern over the growing Jewish population and territorial presence. Concerned that Palestinian Arab leaders had received funding from Fascist Italy and realizing that a war was approaching, the British wanted to stop the Italians and their allies from extending their sphere of influence in the region.
The White Paper provided for creating an independent Palestine to be governed by Palestinian Arabs and Jews in proportion to their numbers in the population by 1939 (section I). Further: a limit of 75,000 Jewish immigrants was set for the five-year period 1940-1944 (consisting of a regular yearly quota of 10,000 and a flexible supplementary quota of 25,000); after 1944 the further immigration of Jews to Palestine would depend on permission of the Arab majority (section II); and restrictions were placed on the rights of Jews to buy land from Arabs (section III).
On May 22, 1939, the House of Commons debated a motion that the White Paper was inconsistent with the terms of the Mandate (embodied in the Mandate was the Balfour Declaration, a November 2, 1917 letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild that made public the British support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine). It was defeated by 268 votes to 179. The following day the House of Lords accepted the new policy without a vote. Lloyd George called the White Paper an act of perfidy and Winston Churchill voted against the government in which he was a minister.
The White Paper fueled Jewish resentment, which lead to Irgun attacks on British-controlled strategic infrastructure and the creation of the Stern Gang. In September 1939, upon the outbreak of World War II, Ben-Gurion gave the rallying cry, "War against Hitler as though there were no White Paper, and war against the White Paper as though there were no Hitler." (Teveth, Ben-Gurion, 718).
Estimated Value $2,000 - 3,000.
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