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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
In May 1939, the British published a White Paper that marked
the end of its commitment to the Jews under the Balfour
Declaration. It provided for the establishment of a Palestinian
(Arab) state within ten years and the appointment of Palestinian
ministers to begin taking over the government as soon as "peace and
order" were restored to Palestine; 75,000 Jews would be allowed
into Palestine over the next five years, after which all
immigration would be subject to Arab consent; all further land
sales would be severely restricted. The 1939 White Paper met a
mixed Arab reception and was rejected by the AHC. The Jewish Agency
rejected it emphatically, branding it as a total repudiation of
Balfour and Mandate obligations. In September 1939, at the outset
of World War II, Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the Jewish Agency,
declared: "We shall fight the war against Hitler as if there were
no White Paper, and we shall fight the White Paper as if there were
no war."
Ben-Gurion's statement of 1939 set the tone for Jewish Agency
policy and operations during World War II. In May 1940, however,
when Winston Churchill, a longtime Zionist sympathizer, became
prime minister, it appeared that the 1939 White Paper might be
rescinded. A brief period of close British-Jewish military
cooperation ensued, and there was talk (which never came to
fruition) of establishing a Jewish division within the British
Army. The British trained Jewish commando units, the first elements
of the famous
Palmach
(Pelugot Mahatz--Shock Forces--see Glossary)--the strategic reserve
of the Haganah--and they also gave Jewish
volunteers intensive training in sabotage, demolition, and partisan
warfare. Ironically, this training proved indispensable in the
Yishuv's efforts after the war to force the British to withdraw
from Palestine.
The entry of Italy into the war in May 1940, which brought the
war closer to the Middle East, convinced Churchill and his military
advisers that the immigration provisions of the White Paper needed
to be enforced so as not to antagonize the Arabs. Thus, the British
strictly enforced the immigration limits at a time when European
Jewry sought desperately to reach the shores of Palestine. Despite
rising British-Jewish tensions, thousands of Jewish volunteers
served in the British army, and on September 14, 1944, the Jewish
Brigade was established.
The event that did the most to turn the Zionist movement
against Churchill's Britain was the Struma affair. The
Struma, a ship carrying Jewish refugees from Romania, was
denied entry into Palestine, after which the ship sank in the Black
Sea leaving all but two of its passengers dead. In the aftermath of
the loss of the Struma in April 1942, young Menachem Begin,
then a soldier in the Polish army-in-exile, first came to
Palestine. Begin was a disciple of Jabotinsky, but he rejected
Jabotinsky's pro-British sympathies. Upon entering Palestine, Begin
immediately set out to draw together the whole underground,
including Lehi, in preparation for a Jewish war of liberation
against the British.
By 1943 as news regarding Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe
increased, the Irgun and Stern Gang stepped up harassment of
British forces in an attempt to obtain unrestricted Jewish
immigration. In November 1944, Lord Moyne, the British ministerresident in Cairo and a close personal friend of Churchill, was
assassinated by Lehi. Lord Moyne's assassination alienated the
British prime minister, who until then had supported a Jewish
national home in Palestine. Subsequently, no British government
considered setting up a Jewish state in Palestine. The
assassination also led the Jewish Agency's clandestine military
arm, Haganah, to cooperate with the British against the Irgun.
Another result of the anti-Zionist trend in British policy was
the Yishuv's increasing reliance on the United States. In May 1942,
Zionist policy and objectives were clarified at a conference of
Zionist parties held at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City. This
conference was called at the initiative of Ben-Gurion, who had come
to solicit the support of American Jews. Ben-Gurion was determined
to seek a resolution that Jewish immigration to Palestine and the
establishment of a Jewish state would proceed despite British
opposition. Weizmann, who objected to the idea of severing ties
with Britain, was outflanked at the conference. The Biltmore
Program adopted at the conference and approved by the Zionist
General Council in November 1942 called for unlimited Jewish
immigration to Palestine and control of immigration by the Jewish
commonwealth, the word commonwealth thus replacing
homeland.
Data as of December 1988
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