From: rdtst+@pitt.edu (Richard D Thorne)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: White Paper 1937
Date: 25 Jan 93 18:30:13 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh


     38.    In those circumstances the Secretary of State 
   for the Colonies, Mr. Winston Churchill, published in 
   June, 1922, a statement of "British Policy in 
   Palestine"*.  It included the following interpretation 
   of the Balfour Declaration:-
   
   "So far as the Jewish population of Palestine are 
   concerned, it appears that some among them are 
   apprehensive that His Majesty's Government may depart 
   from the policy embodied in the Declaration of 1917.  It 
   is necessary, therefore, once more to affirm that these 
   fears are unfounded, and that that Declaration, re-
   affirmed by the Conference of the Principal Allied 
   Powers at San Remo and again in the Treaty of Sevres is 
   not susceptible of change.
   
   "During the last two or three generations the 
   Jews have recreated in Palestine a community, now 
   numbering 80,000, of whom about one-fourth are farmers 
   or workers upon the land.  This community has its own 
   political organs; an elected assembly for the direction 
   of its domestic concerns; elected councils in the towns; 
   and an organisation for the control of its schools.  It 
   has its elected Chief Rabbinate and Rabbinical Council 
   for the direction if its religious affairs.  Its 
   business is conducted in Hebrew as a vernacular 
   language, and a Hebrew Press serves its needs.  It has 
   its distinctive intellectual life and displays 
   considerable economic activity.  This community, then,  
   with its town and country population, its political, 
   religious and social organizations, its own language, 
   its own customs, its own life,  has in fact TnationalU 
   characteristics.  When it is asked.what is ...
   meant by the development of the  Jewish National 
   Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the 
   imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants 
   of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of 
   the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of 
   Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may 
   become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole 
   may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest 
   and a pride.  But in order that this community should 
   have the best prospect of free development and 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.
   
   "This, then is the interpretation which His 
   Majesty's Government place upon the Declaration of 1917, 
   and, so understood, the Secretary of State is of opinion 
   that it does not contain or imply anything which need 
   cause either alarm to the Arab population of Palestine 
   or disappointment to the Jews."
   
   
   39.  This definition of the National Home has sometimes 
   been taken to preclude the establishment of a Jewish 
   state.  But, though the phraseology was clearly intended 
   to conciliate, as far as might be, Arab antagonism to 
   the National Home, there is nothing in it to prohibit 
   the ultimate establishment of a Jewish State, and Mr. 
   Churchill himself has told us in evidence that no such 
   prohibition was intended.
   
   Palestine Royal Commission 1937, Chap. II, para. 38-39, 
   pages 32-33.
   
   (*)  Printed in Cmd. 1700 (pages 17-21), also in Cmd. 
   3530 (Appendix V).


     >  Just for record.  The White Paper of 1922  did not preclude the
     >  establishment of a Jewish state.

     >   Richard Thorne