This article will be permanently flagged as inappropriate and made unaccessible to everyone. Are you certain this article is inappropriate? Excessive Violence Sexual Content Political / Social
Email Address:
Article Id: WHEBN0000332711 Reproduction Date:
The Churchill White Paper (also known as The British White Paper of 1922) of 3 June 1922 was in response to the 1921 Jaffa Riots in which growing tensions between Arab and Jewish populations in Palestine came to a head. Although the attacks were primarily facilitated by the Arabs, the British White Paper concluded that the violence was sparked by resentment towards Jewish Zionists and the perceived favoritism towards them by the British, as well as Arab fears of subjugation. The paper emphasized that "the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian", that the Balfour Agreement did not support "the disappearance or the subordination of the Arabic population, language, or culture in Palestine", and that British intended to "foster the establishment of a full measure of self government in Palestine". [1] In response, the paper called for a limitation of Jewish immigration to "the economic capacity of the country to absorb new arrivals" in order to reduce tensions between the Arabs and Jews in the region. [2] This was considered a great setback to many in the Zionist movement.[3]
The main provisions of this white paper are summarized by these quotations from it:
Having clarified the understanding and intent of the British government, the White Paper continues, outlining measures to assist in attaining the objectives: 'For the fulfilment of this policy it is necessary that the Jewish community in Palestine should be able to increase its numbers by immigration. This immigration cannot be so great in volume as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals. It is essential to ensure that the immigrants should not be a burden upon the people of Palestine as a whole, and that they should not deprive any section of the present population of their employment. Hitherto the immigration has fulfilled these conditions. The number of immigrants since the British occupation has been about 25,000.' The document notes an exception however, saying: ‘It is necessary also to ensure that persons who are politically undesirable be excluded from Palestine, and every precaution has been and will be taken by the Administration to that end.’
It also expressed the British view on the reason for not immediately forming an independent government of Palestine, addressing the conflicting claims related to the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, Sykes-Picot Agreement and subsequent Balfour Declaration:
'It is not the case, as has been represented by the Arab Delegation, that during the war His Majesty's Government gave an undertaking that an independent national government should be at once established in Palestine. This representation mainly rests upon a letter dated 24 October 1915, from
"The Palestine position is this. If we deal with our commitments, there is first the general pledge to Hussein in October 1915, under which Palestine was included in the areas as to which Great Britain pledged itself that they should be Arab and independent in the future . . . Great Britain and France—Italy subsequently agreeing—committed themselves to an international administration of Palestine in consultation with Russia, [and the Sharif of Mecca] who was an ally at that time . . . A new feature was brought into the case in November 1917, when Mr Balfour, with the authority of the War Cabinet, issued his famous declaration to the Zionists that Palestine 'should be the national home of the Jewish people, but that nothing should be done—and this, of course, was a most important proviso—to prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. Those, as far as I know, are the only actual engagements into which we entered with regard to Palestine."[8]
Years later, scholars searching through the declassified files in the National Archives discovered evidence that Palestine had been pledged to Hussein. The Eastern Committee of the Cabinet, previously known as the Middle Eastern Committee, had met on 5 December 1918 to discuss the government's commitments regarding Palestine. Lord Curzon chaired the meeting. General Jan Smuts, Lord Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil, General Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and representatives of the Foreign Office, the India Office, the Admiralty, the War Office, and the Treasury were present. T. E. Lawrence also attended. According to the minutes Lord Curzon explained the Hussein, Sykes-Picot, and Balfour commitments:
A committee established by the British in 1939 to clarify the various arguments observed that many commitments had been made during and after the Great War—and that all of them would have to be studied together. The Arab representatives submitted a statement to the committee from Sir Michael McDonnell[6] which explained that whatever McMahon had intended to mean was of no legal consequence, since it was his actual statements that constituted the pledge from His Majesty's Government. They also pointed out that McMahon had been acting as an intermediary for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Grey. Speaking in the House of Lords on 27 March 1923, Lord Grey had made it clear that, for his part, he entertained serious doubts as to the validity of the Churchill White Paper's interpretation of the pledges which he, as Foreign Secretary, had caused to be given to the Sharif Hussein in 1915.[7]
On the day that the first High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, signed for 'one Palestine, complete' [5] there were no formally recognized borders. The Zionist Committee's proposal excluded the area from Amman to the Mesopotamian and Arabian frontiers. According to Sykes, Churchill, and Balfour the areas lying east of the line from Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Alleppo (the Hedjaz Railway route) had been pledged to the Arabs (as noted in Churchill's analysis). The Vilayet of Ma'an and the port of Aqaba were annexed to Transjordan from the Kingdom of Hedjaz as the latter fell to Ibn Saud. The Occupied Enemy Territory which later became Syria Mesopotamia, and Palestine were mentioned in Section VII, Articles 94-97 of the Treaty of Sèvres, the short-lived Kingdom of Hejaz is mentioned separately in Section VIII, articles 98-100.
The Council of the League of Nations: Whereas 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, within such boundaries as may be fixed by them;
The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement said that the boundaries between an Arab State and Palestine should be determined by a Commission after the Paris Peace Conference. The Zionist delegation submitted a map that proposed a border west of the Hedjaz Railway, exactly where Balfour had suggested it be drawn in a memo to the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon.
The 1922 White Paper did not put an end to the controversy, The text of the Sykes-Picot Agreement had included a proviso that required coordination with the Sharif of Mecca regarding the so-called international zone (Palestine). It also called for an Arab State or confederation under an Arab Chief, and the British government had arranged for the meetings leading up to the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement.
[4]
Israel, Egypt, Gaza Strip, United Kingdom, Jerusalem
League of Nations, Turkish War of Independence, Mandatory Palestine, Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Treaty of Versailles
United Kingdom, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Taxation in the United Kingdom, Elizabeth II, Departments of the United Kingdom Government
Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Mandatory Palestine, Sykes–Picot Agreement, Jerusalem, Syria
Mandatory Palestine, Jerusalem, Hebrew language, Arab–Israeli conflict, 1948 Arab–Israeli War
Mandatory Palestine, 1929 Palestine riots, Palestine, Shaw Commission, Hope Simpson Enquiry
Mandatory Palestine, Arab–Israeli conflict, Harry S. Truman, United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, Damascus Protocol