Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1938, The British Commonwealth, Europe, Near East, and Africa, Volume II

867N.01/1179

Memorandum Submitted to the Secretary of State by American Jewish Delegation⁷⁷

October 14, 1938.

Sir: This delegation, representative of every section of organized Jewish life in the United States, is grateful for the courtesy you have extended to it to acquaint you, and through you the President of the United States, with the deep anxiety pervading public opinion in this country regarding Palestine.

We respectfully appeal to the Department of State to exercise the right of the Government of the United States to intercede with the British Government, as Mandatory for Palestine, in a situation which threatens to result in a radical departure from, if not a complete reversal of, the policy of the Palestine Mandate which has been governing during the past twenty years the administration of the Holy Land and the establishment therein of a National Home for the Jewish people.

This anxiety has been caused by well authenticated reports that the British Government is contemplating such changes in the status of the mandated territory as would have the effect of nullification of the Balfour Declaration, issued by the British Government on November 2, 1917, and approved by both Houses of Congress in their Joint Resolution of September 21, 1922,⁷⁸ and abrogation of the Palestine Mandate, the terms of which are incorporated in a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States of America, signed on December 3, 1924.

Our plea for your intercession is based on the clear need which seems to have arisen for safeguarding the maintenance of a policy, in the shaping and development of which the United States has had a decisive part and a deep interest; as well as on the ground of humanitarian action which, if promptly taken, would tend to avert widespread suffering in the Holy Land and overwhelming despair among large numbers of actual and prospective Jewish refugees. To escape the fate which is intended for them in lands of oppression, these victims must look to the national home for the Jewish people in Palestine as the primary avenue of hope and salvation.

Our plea is based further on the necessity of preventing injury to vital interests of United States nationals whose status will have undergone a radical and perilous change if any of the proposals now said to be under consideration by the British Government, as a substitute for the Balfour Declaration and the Jewish National Home policy of the Palestine Mandate, go into effect.

The requirement of American consent to any alteration in the present international status and political structure of Palestine, provided for in the treaty of December 3, 1924, equals the necessity, then universally recognized, for American consent to the establishment of the present regime in Palestine. This right was asserted by Secretaries of State Colby and Hughes and was conceded by the Principal Allied Powers and by the Council of the League of Nations, as well as by the British Government in their note of April 29, 1922.⁷⁹

Since the consent of the United States to the administration of Palestine by the British Government, given in Article 1 of the treaty of December 3, 1924, was a consent to transfer of rights of jurisdiction in Palestine, limited in duration and scope, any modification of that disposition of Palestine involves pro tanto a modification of Article 1 of the treaty such as, under the terms of Article 7 of the treaty itself, cannot be validly made without the consent of the United States. The British Royal Commission, in its report of July, 1937, relating the part played by the United States in the international arrangements for the administration of the Mandated territory, took cognizance of this point. Invocation of Article 7 of the American-British Convention of December 3, 1924, is respectfully requested.

In reliance upon the good faith of the British Government and on the international arrangements concurred in and supported by the Government of the United States for the progressive establishment of the Jewish National Home, American Jews joined in extending their moral and material support to the reconstruction program which transformed wasteland into flourishing settlements and cities and increased the Jewish population in the Holy Land from 55,000 souls in the immediate post-War era to the present Jewish population of 450,000 souls. Jews take pride in the fact that, in addition to the advance made in the upbuilding of the Jewish National Home, the Arab population, far from suffering any setback from this influx of capital and men, actually benefited materially in every phase of its life from the resources and the example of their Jewish neighbors.

Your intercession to avert a reversal of the policies hitherto pursued would be an action of the greatest humanitarian significance, since the most striking result of a reversal of policy would be the stoppage of Jewish immigration into the Holy Land and closing the doors of Israel’s ancient homeland to the refugees.

Such a situation would constitute not only a cruel blow that would further aggravate the indescribable plight of the refugees from lands of oppression but a strange and inexplicable anti-climax to the historic humanitarian act of the President of the United States and yourself, when the Evian conference⁸⁰ was called and special machinery of an international nature was created to explore and provide settlement opportunities for victims of unprecedented persecution. Are they to be barred, in the hour of their most desperate need, from asylum in their ancient homeland, the historic connection with which is hallowed by a continuous tradition of thousands of years and which was made the keystone of the mandate for Palestine?

Since the Jewish National Home policy was announced, Jews in the United States and elsewhere poured their resources and energies into the upbuilding of Palestine in the form of public and private contributions and investments.

Nearly ten thousand United States nationals are residents of Palestine, actively engaged in the pioneering tasks that are connected with the upbuilding of the Jewish National Home.

These investments of life and treasure have been made in reliance on the permanence of the international obligations underlying the Palestine Mandate. They derived impetus from the knowledge that our own Government had a share in the formulation of the terms of the Mandate, consented to its implementation and is to be consulted on any alteration in the terms of the charter governing the administration of the Holy Land. A reversal of this policy must bring incalculable damage to these vital interests.

Active American support for implementation of the Jewish National Home in Palestine has been part of public policy for many years, dating from the time that President Wilson shared in the drafting of the Balfour Declaration. Every President of the United States since Woodrow Wilson, including President Harding, President Coolidge, President Hoover and President Roosevelt, has, on numerous occasions, given public expression to his views in support of the Jewish resettlement program in Palestine.

Our right as American Jews to make representations affecting Palestine has been affirmed by the British Government. On February 13, 1931, Prime Minister MacDonald wrote an official letter to Dr. Chaim Weizmann,⁸¹ President of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, in which he said that His Majesty’s Government “recognizes that the undertaking of the mandate is an undertaking to the Jewish people and not only to the Jewish population of Palestine.”

The policy with which your administration of the Department of State has been identified has emphasized that international peace is grounded in the sanctity of international covenants. Seeking positive ways to promote amity between nations you have consistently urged that world law and order can be preserved only through the fulfillment of obligations undertaken by nations.

In view of the indisputable right of the American Government to intercede in the present situation affecting Palestine; in view of the humanitarian policy you have enunciated looking to the easement of the plight of refugees; and in view of the increasing pressure exerted upon Jews to expel them from lands in which they have lived for centuries, it is our earnest plea that the Government of the United States will take suitable action to urge upon the British Government a reaffirmation and a fulfillment of its pledge to facilitate the establishment of the Jewish National Home and to assist and encourage immigration of Jews into Palestine.

The action you will take at this hour of crisis in the history of a people’s heroic effort to salvage its bereaved and homeless remnants will add immeasurably to the debt of gratitude that has already accumulated in our hearts and keep burning the light of hope and comfort which dispels the shadows of darkness hovering over millions of the Jewish people.

77. Made up of the following members:

    • Carl Austrian, New York, representing the American Jewish Committee;
    • Dr. Stephen S. Wise, New York, President of the American Jewish Congress;
    • George Backer, Vice-President of the American Joint Distribution Committee;
    • Henry Monsky, Omaha, Nebraska, President of B’nai B’rith;
    • Joseph Schlossberg, New York, representing the American Jewish Labor Committee;
    • Judge Morris Rothenberg, New York, Co-Chairman of the Council of the Jewish Agency for Palestine;
    • Mrs. Judith Epstein, New York, President of Hadassah;
    • Samuel A. Goldsmith, Chicago, Chairman of the Illinois Emergency Committee;
    • Dr. Israel Goldstein, New York, President of the Jewish National Fund;
    • Isidor Worth, New Jersey, National Commander of the Jewish War Veterans;
    • Leon Gellman, New York, President of the Mizrachi Organization of America;
    • Louis Lipsky, New York, Chairman of the Palestine Foundation Fund;
    • Chaim Greenberg, New York, representing the Poale Zion;
    • Rabbi B. L. Levinthal, Philadelphia, dean of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States;
    • Edmund I. Kaufmann, Chairman of the Washington, D. C., Emergency Committee;
    • Dr. Solomon Goldman, Chicago, President of the Zionist Organization of America.

78. 42 Stat. 1012.
79. See telegram No. 199, May 1, 1922, 3 p.m., from the Ambassador in Great Britain, Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. ii, p. 275.
80. See vol. i, pp. 740 ff.
81. For text of letter, see the New York Times, February 14, 1931, p. 8.