Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1939, The Far East; The Near East and Africa, Volume IV

867N.01/1599

Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Murray) to the Secretary of State

[Washington,] May 15, 1939.

We have received today, in strict confidence, the final decisions of the British Government regarding its Palestine policy, which are expected to be published in the form of a White Paper in London on Wednesday, May 17.

The principal points of difference between the present decisions and the final proposals as made by the British to the London Conference on Palestine held in February and March are as follows:

(1) The term of the transitional period pending the establishment of an independent Palestine state is definitely fixed as “within ten years.” However, if at the end of that time circumstances require the postponement of the establishment of the independent state the British Government will consult representatives of the people of Palestine, the Council of the League and neighboring Arab States before deciding on such a postponement. If the British Government concludes that postponement is unavoidable it will invite the cooperation of these parties in framing a plan for the future with a view to achieving the desired objective at the earliest possible moment.

(2) Under the former proposals the regulation of Jewish immigration after five years would be subject to Arab consent and the establishment of an independent Palestine upon Jewish consent. The present final decisions make the continuance of Jewish immigration after five years subject to Arab consent but a Jewish veto upon the setting up of an independent Palestine is not stipulated. Instead the final decisions provide that:

“At the end of five years from the restoration of peace and order an appropriate body of representatives of the people of Palestine and of His Majesty’s Government will be set up to review the working of the constitutional arrangements during the transitional period and to consider and make recommendations regarding the constitution of the independent Palestinian State.”

(3) While the final decisions do not expressly contemplate settlement of the Palestine problem on a federal basis, as envisaged in the final proposals and as stated to be “most favored by the Jewish leaders”, the British Government has informed us, in the aide-mémoire accompanying pertinent extracts from the decisions, that in the Parliamentary discussion of Palestine the Colonial Secretary will make it clear “that such a solution is not excluded and will be for consideration in due course”. It is presumed that by federal basis is meant a solution along lines of cantonal administration which would give the Jews full local autonomy in Jewish areas.

(4) The final proposals made no provision for the establishment of an elective legislature during the transitional period but instead foresaw the possibility of holding elections within two years for a Legislative Council to take the place of the present Advisory Council. The final decisions, however, envisage the possibility of an elective legislature and differ besides from the final proposals in that the process of permitting both sections of the population to participate in the machinery of government “will be carried on whether or not both avail themselves of it”. This intention is obviously framed in order to avoid possible efforts by the Jews or Arabs to block the introduction of self-governing institutions by a refusal to participate in them.

In brief, the final British decisions provide for “the establishment within ten years of an independent Palestinian state in such treaty relations with the United Kingdom as will provide satisfactorily for the commercial and strategic requirements of both countries in the future”. “As soon as peace and order have been sufficiently restored in Palestine”, Arab and Jewish representatives will be invited to serve as heads of departments, with the assistance of British advisers, approximately in proportion to their respective populations (the present proportions are: Arabs 71 percent, Jews 28 percent, others 1 percent). The number of Palestinians in charge of departments will be increased “as circumstances permit” until all heads of departments are Palestinians and, in the meanwhile, such Palestinian heads of departments will sit on the Executive Council, which advises the High Commissioner. Eventually the Executive Council may be converted into a Council of Ministers. The British Government will require to be satisfied that, in the treaty and constitution contemplated, adequate provision has been made (1) in respect of the Holy Places and (2) for the protection of the different communities in Palestine in accordance with British obligations to both Arabs and Jews and “for the special position in Palestine of the Jewish National Home”.

Concerning immigration, the final British decisions envisage, as did the final British proposals, the entry during the next five years, subject to the economic absorptive capacity of Palestine, of sufficient Jews to bring the proportion of the Jewish population of Palestine from its present ratio of twenty-eight percent to thirty-three and one-third percent. This would involve, according to British calculations, an addition of some 75,000 to the present population, which would be distributed at the rate of 10,000 per annum, plus 25,000 Jewish refugees, who will be admitted as soon as the High Commissioner is satisfied that adequate provision for their maintenance is insured, special consideration being given to refugee children and dependents. After five years, no further Jewish immigration will be permitted “unless the Arabs of Palestine are prepared to acquiesce in it”. Immigration at this rate during the next five years would represent a slight increase over the present rate.

Concerning land transfers, the High Commission will be given, as was envisaged in the final British proposals, general powers to prohibit and regulate transfers of land. In the aide-mémoire accompanying the communication of the final British decisions, it is stated that in respect of such regulation of land transfers the High Commissioner will do his utmost to follow as closely as possible the recommendations of the recent Peel and Woodhead Commissions (Palestine Royal Commission and Palestine Partition Commission). It may be expected, therefore, that in the light of those reports the acquisition of land by Jews will be unrestricted in the predominantly Jewish areas, prohibited in predominantly Arab areas and restricted in such mixed areas as Galilee in northern Palestine and the Negev in southern Palestine.

In explanation of its decisions, the British Government contends that the framers of the Palestine Mandate “could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish state against the will of the Arab population of the country”. Reference is made in that connection to the statement of the British Government made in a White Paper of 1922⁶⁴ that “His Majesty’s Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view”. In order to remove any possible ambiguity attaching to the position of the British Government in the matter, the statement is now made that His Majesty’s Government: “would indeed regard it as contrary to their obligations to the Arabs under the Mandate, hence to the assurances which have been given to the Arab people in the past that the Arab population of Palestine should be made subjects of a Jewish state against their will”.

The proposed British White Paper refers also to the statement in the White Paper of 1922 that for Jewish free development and to provide: “a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection”. It is added that “His Majesty’s Government adhere to this interpretation of the Declaration of 1917”.

Concerning the McMahon correspondence,⁶⁵ it is remarked that the British Government cannot agree that such correspondence “forms a just basis for the claim that Palestine should be converted into an Arab state”.

The proposed White Paper continues by pointing out that the British Government is charged as a mandatory power “to secure the development of self-governing institutions” in Palestine and it is added that that Government would regard it “as contrary to the whole spirit of the Mandate System that the population of Palestine should remain forever under mandatory tutelage”. Although the British Government is unable at present to foresee the exact constitutional forms which government in Palestine will eventually take, the desire is expressed to see established ultimately an independent Palestine, in which the “two peoples in Palestine, Arabs and Jews, share authority in governing in such a way that the essential interests of each are secured”.

As has been pointed out in previous memoranda of this Division, the crux of British difficulties in Palestine hitherto have been their inability to reconcile the dual obligations imposed under the Mandate to secure the establishment of a Jewish National Home and to develop, at the same time, self-governing institutions. This dual obligation is found in Article 2 of the Mandate, which reads as follows:

“The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish National Home, as laid down in the Preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.”

The securing of the establishment of a Jewish National Home has made impossible, so long as the Arabs were in the majority, the granting to Palestine of self-governing institutions as such institutions would have enabled the Arabs to nullify the establishment of such a home. The one obligation, accordingly, has made impossible the fulfillment of the other.

Concerning this, in connection particularly with the problem of immigration, the proposed British White Paper remarks:

“In the view of the Royal Commission the association of the policy of the Balfour Declaration with the Mandate System implied a belief that Arab hostility to the former would sooner or later be overcome. It has been the hope of British Governments ever since the Balfour Declaration was issued that in time the Arab population, recognizing the advantages to be derived from Jewish settlement and development in Palestine, would become reconciled to the further growth of the Jewish National Home. This hope has not been fulfilled. The alternatives before His Majesty’s Government are either (1) to seek to expand the Jewish National Home indefinitely by immigration against the strongly expressed will of the Arab people of the country or (2) to promote the further expansion of the Jewish National Home by immigration only if the Arabs are prepared to acquiesce in it. The former policy means rule by force. Apart from other considerations, such a policy seems to His Majesty’s Government to be contrary to the whole spirit of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, as well as to their specific obligations to the Arabs in the Palestine Mandate.”^*

In the aide-mémoire⁶⁶ accompanying the British final decisions, it is remarked that “His Majesty’s Government trusts that the United States authorities will appreciate the peculiar difficulties with which they have to contend in Palestine”. An allusion to these “peculiar difficulties” is made in the text of the proposed British White Paper, in which it is stated that if immigration is continued in Palestine regardless of all other considerations “a fatal enmity between the two peoples (Arabs and Jews) will be perpetuated and the situation in Palestine may become a permanent source of friction among all the peoples of the Near and Middle East”. The importance to Great Britain of avoiding such friction among the Arab people populating one of the lifelines of the British Empire—that passing through the eastern Mediterranean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf—needs no elaboration.

The aide-mémoire also notes that:

“It is understood that the President has frequently shown an interest in the possibility of some development and settlement either of Arabs from Palestine or else of Jews in Trans-Jordan. His Majesty’s Government share the President’s desire for such a development though expert investigations have indicated that the possibilities are somewhat limited. While the situation in Palestine has been tense and the Arab fear of domination by a Jewish minority continued, it was politically impossible for the Trans-Jordan authorities, however willing they might be, to consent to any such Jewish settlement. His Majesty’s Government hope that their policy in Palestine will enable peace and confidence to be restored there in the near future and that in due course, therefore, it will be possible, if the Jews handle the matter tactfully, for them to induce the Arabs to agree to a development in Trans-Jordan on the lines which the President has advocated.”

It may be finally remarked that the proposed British White Paper provides that before the establishment of an independent Palestine state: “His Majesty’s Government will also require to be satisfied that the interests of certain foreign countries in Palestine for the preservation of which they are at present responsible are adequately safeguarded.” This obviously refers to the United States and to the responsibility assumed by Great Britain in the American-British Palestine Mandate Convention of December 3, 1924, in respect of American rights in Palestine.

Taking all things into consideration and, having in view particularly, British strategic interests in the eastern Mediterranean and the necessity for Great Britain in the present uncertain state of international affairs of cementing its position in the Near East, it is our opinion that the final British decisions represent perhaps as reasonable a compromise between Jewish and Arab aspirations as it is practicable to attempt to effect at this time.

No present action on the part of this Government is called for by the final British decisions as they do not affect our Mandate Convention of December 3, 1924 with the British Government concerning Palestine and will not affect that convention until the possible termination of the Mandate which is now envisaged as a contingency some ten years hence.

Wallace Murray

64. British Cmd. 1700: Correspondence With the Palestine Arab Delegation and the Zionist Organization, June 1922.
65. British Cmd. 5957, Miscellaneous No. 3 (1939).
66. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League reads in part as follows: “Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the lending [rendering] of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone.” The Preamble to the Palestine Mandate recites that “The Principal Allied Powers have agreed for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, to entrust to a mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire.” [Footnote in the original.]
66. Supra.