867N.01/1687: Telegram
The Consul General at Jerusalem (Wadsworth) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 3—9 a.m.]
9. Local reaction to the publication last Wednesday of “land transfers regulations”12 in substance prohibiting, except by special authorization and for limited special purposes, transfer of all Palestine Arab-owned land save to Palestine Arabs, other than in municipal areas, the Haifa industrial zone and a central coastal area of some one thousand square kilometres, may be summarized as follows.
[Page 841]Jewish opposition is as widespread and bitter as that following publication of the British White Paper of last May. General strike and synagogue services recall those of that month. Street demonstrations were probably prevented from deteriorating into serious rioting by prompt British police action and military imposition of curfew at Haifa and Tel Aviv. Placards carried by demonstrators demand repeal, calling “down with MacDonald13 and his Nuremberg laws” and “Hitler smote us in front, the British in the back”. The “free” coastal area is derisively termed a pale of settlement. The Jewish Agency has protested officially that the regulations “not only violate the terms of the mandate but completely nullify its primary purpose”. Arab reaction is [not?] unfavorable but with undercurrent of continuing mistrust of British bona fides and apprehension that Jewish pressure will induce modification.
British officials welcome move as one showing intention to make White Paper policy with emphasis on the modifying clause of article 6 of the mandate. I sense that, as British Palestine policy last spring when war threatened was designed in large measure to re-establish good will in the Arab and Moslem worlds, it is today being implemented by immigration and land transfer restrictions not only because such action is believed to be just but also with that same larger political objective in view.