Despite British duplicity, “Palestine” does not exist, and the State of Israel thrives. Sion extensively documents, British promises and perfidy are forever embedded in history. Despite this newest British betrayal of Jews, the State of Israel was born in 1948.Īs Abraham A. Once World War II ended following the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin recommended that Holocaust survivors remain in Europe, not immigrate to Palestine. But as the Nazi extermination of Jews unfolded, Churchill-to his credit-strongly criticized Parliament restrictions in the 1939 White Paper on Jewish immigration to Palestine. This, he writes, meant “British recognition of Palestine as Arab land” (so much for the Balfour Declaration promise of a Jewish national home in Palestine). In what Sion identifies as a “flagrant violation of the Mandate,” the MacDonald White Paper (1939) proposed one Palestinian state with a permanent Arab majority. The historic Jewish attachment to biblical Judea, between Jerusalem and Hebron, was ignored.Īs the Nazi conquest spread, another White Paper further restricted Jewish immigration. A new royal commission recommended that Jews be confined to a strip of Palestine along the Mediterranean coast, stretching northward from Tel Aviv to the Lebanon border and eastward to Lake Tiberias. But Arabs were not satisfied.ĭemanding the “immediate cessation” of Jewish immigration-just as Adolph Hitler’s Jewish extermination policy was emerging-a wave of Arab attacks in 1936 resulted in the murder of nearly 100 Jews. The Passfield White Paper (1930) envisioned a binational community with an Arab majority. His “pro-Arab appeasing policy,” Sion writes, reassured Arabs that there was “no intention to create a wholly Jewish Palestine.”īritish undermining of the Balfour Declaration continued. Blaming Zionists for Arab violence, Churchill promised restrictions on Jewish immigration. British policy shifted to the promotion of an Arab state in Palestine with a permanent Jewish minority. This action, intended to align Hashemite leader Emir Abdullah with British interests in the region, was, Sion writes, “in total breach of the Mandate.” It enabled Britain to undermine the Balfour Declaration and redefine the boundaries of Palestine. It became known as Trans-Jordan, where Jews were forbidden “to enter, settle or acquire citizenship.” It reduced the Balfour Declaration’s promise of a Jewish National Home to no more than “a center in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and pride.”ĭetermined to prevent any possibility of French intrusion, Churchill then removed all territory east of the Jordan River, included in the original British Mandate definition of “Palestine,” to establish another Arab country. But, he added, this “does not mean that it will cease to be the national home of other people.” The British government, he noted, “is well disposed towards the Arabs in Palestine.” Indeed, it was.Ĭhurchill’s White Paper (1922) called for a limitation of Jewish immigration to the economic capacity of the country to absorb new arrivals. “My heart is full of sympathy for Zionism,” he declared, reiterating the right of Jews to build their national home in Palestine. As yet, there were no self-identified “Palestinians.”Īfter visiting Jerusalem, British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill described himself as “a sincere advocate” of the Balfour Declaration. The postwar Mandate for Palestine, granted to Great Britain and confirmed by the League in 1922, recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people” with that land and “the grounds for reconstituting their National Home in that country.” Although Jews comprised a small minority of the Palestinian population, “peoplehood” was not applied to any other residents.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |