Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1944, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, The Far East, Volume V

740.0011 Stettinius Mission/125

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Foy D. Kohler of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs

London, April 11, 1944.

Participants:	Sir Maurice Peterson, K.C.M.G., Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
	Mr. C. W. Baxter, C.M.G., M.C., Head, Eastern Dept
	The Honorable R.M.A. Hankey, Eastern Department
	Mr. Wallace Murray, Director, Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, Department of State
	Dr. Isaiah Bowman, Department of State
	Mr. Foy Kohler, Department of State
	Mr. Robert Coe, American Embassy

Sir Maurice expressed the pleasure of the Foreign Office in having members of the State Department present to discuss Middle Eastern questions and stated that he believed it had been agreed that the talks were to start with Palestine.

British White Paper Policy

By way of introduction Sir Maurice said that a principal concern of the Foreign Office was Zionist agitation in the United States and the desirability that this be kept in hand during the war.

Sir Maurice went on to say that the Foreign Office does not consider the question of Palestine urgent, explaining that there is still a quota of about 27,500 open for Jewish immigrants of which only about 8,000 are presently earmarked. In view of the difficulty of arranging the release and transportation of Jewish refugees from Europe he felt that this number is more than ample for foreseeable emigrants from Europe during the course of the war. The White Paper he felt, so far as the Foreign Office is concerned, will certainly be maintained during the war. However, it must be regarded as provisional to be superseded by some definitive solution following the termination of hostilities. Sir Maurice thought that the continuance of the immigration quota would enable the British Government to withstand the pressure from Dr. Weizmann and the Zionists during the course of the war. As to the post-war settlement Sir Maurice said that there were many schools of thought and many proposals. Particularly in political circles in Britain he said that there is a strong feeling for partition.

In this connection Mr. Murray said that the Zionists in the United States were using very effectively Mr. Churchill’s statement of 1939 opposing the White Paper. Sir Maurice confirmed that Mr. Churchill does in fact continue to be opposed to the White Paper. He said that he had not himself discussed the question recently with Churchill, who goes back in his stand to the Balfour Declaration.⁹⁶ However, Sir Maurice commented that he had been associated with Lord Balfour in those times and that he was satisfied that Balfour had at no time considered that a Jewish state in Palestine had been promised to the Jews. Mr. Murray stated that he understood that Lord Balfour had been somewhat vague about the implications of the Declaration and that whenever concrete problems had arisen he referred them to someone else to work out. Sir Maurice replied that this was so. He said Lord Balfour had hardly been aware of the existence of the Arabs, but that he suddenly became acutely conscious of their existence when he went to Damascus in 1922 and they stoned him in the streets!

[Here follows brief discussion regarding visit of certain American Zionists to Great Britain, concerning which Sir Maurice indicated that he had no information.]

Post-War Status of Palestine

Sir Maurice then went on to expound his own conception of postwar settlement in Palestine. He thought that Palestine should be a bi-national state of Arabs and Jews with a single Palestinian citizenship and that the Jewish population should be permanently limited to something less than the Arab population. He mentioned for example that the Jewish population should be restricted permanently to a figure of 100,000 less than the Arab population. Palestine should be continued under a mandate or some similar assignment of responsibility to a single power (presumably Great Britain; here there was some bantering discussion of United States refusal to accept any mandates after the last war) by whatever international organization that may be then set up. Under the central mandatory government there would be local Jewish and Arab communal governments; for example, Tel-Aviv would be governed by the Jews; Jaffa by the Arabs; and areas with mixed populations perhaps by mixed commissions.

This latter point was developed by Dr. Bowman who went on to outline briefly the conception of a trusteeship for Palestine along the lines we have been discussing in the Department. Sir Maurice replied that he could not speak of course for the British Government, since Cabinet members totally unconnected with the foreign field were liable to have concrete, though sometimes extraordinary, opinions about the Palestine question, but that he could say that the Foreign Office would go all out for such a solution as that suggested by Dr. Bowman.

Sir Maurice felt that a Palestinian state of this type might develop cultural and economic ties with the major Arab states but he did not contemplate the political inclusion of Palestine in any Arab union; he expressed considerable skepticism in fact on the subject of Arab unity and opined that we would not see political union among the Arab states in our day.

During this phase of the discussion Mr. Baxter mentioned that some Zionists in Britain are thinking of a possible fusion of Transjordan and Palestine with the idea that such fusion would placate the Arabs and allow room for Jewish administration and settlement. Mr. Murray also mentioned the thought which had been expressed in Zionist circles in the United States that the development of Iraq might encourage considerable Arab emigration from Palestine to that country and thus provide for expansion of Jewish settlement in Palestine.

Proposed Joint Statement on Palestine

Mr. Murray then recalled the efforts which had been made last year to secure the issuance of a joint Anglo-American statement on Palestine and inquired about the present British attitude. Sir Maurice replied that there had been a number of developments since last year; that the British Government had particularly desired to make clear that it had no intention of permitting or acquiescing in any changes brought about by force in the status of Palestine or in its administration; and that the recent outbreaks on the part of Jewish extremists had given them the occasion to demonstrate this attitude in no uncertain terms. He added, however, that the British Government is always prepared to join in the issuance of such a statement if it would be useful on the other side of the Atlantic. Mr. Murray said that he thought the issuance of such a statement should be determined principally by the possibilities of an explosion in Palestine which might deflect troops to that area to maintain order and that he wondered what the British estimate of the situation would be in that regard. Sir Maurice replied that he thought that the Arabs were on the whole satisfied with the White Paper and that they were conscious that their interests lay with a victory of the United Nations. Consequently, he did not fear trouble from them as long as the White Paper was maintained. With respect to the Jews he was a little less certain. He said that the Jewish extremists had murdered seven British policemen during the last few weeks and he did not think it unlikely that they might attempt to assassinate prominent British officials in that country. He said that the moderate Zionists deplored these outbreaks of the extremist elements but that they were either unable or unwilling to help much in their suppression. Referring particularly to the Stern gang, he characterized this as an underground organization, the extent of which was difficult to estimate but said the Foreign Office thought its membership limited to about 200 to 250 persons.

Attitude of Arabs toward Palestine

[Here follows expression of personal views by Sir Maurice Peterson.]

There was some discussion of the Zionist resolutions recently introduced into the American Congress. Mr. Murray outlined the sequence of events in this connection and the attitude taken by the War Department and the Chief of Staff which had led to the indefinite shelving of the resolutions. Sir Maurice mentioned the Arab protests against the resolutions, explaining that His Majesty’s Government had had nothing whatsoever to do with these protests despite reports to the contrary. Mr. Murray replied that there had indeed been an impressive Arab unanimity on this subject, but that the protests had all arrived after the stand of the military authorities had already caused the resolutions to be shelved.

96. Contained in a letter concerning the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine written by the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Arthur James Balfour, to Lord Walter Rothschild on November 2, 1917; for text, see Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. iv, p. 752, footnote 14.