October 20: The White Papers

In response to the Arab riots of 1929, British colonial secretary Lord Passfield issued a formal statement on this date in 1930 restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine on the assumption that it was interfering with Arab access to jobs and arable land. This was one of three White Papers issued by Britain in interpretation of the Balfour Declaration of 1917: in 1922, granting land east of the Jordan river to Emir Abdullah and restricting Jewish immigration to the “economic absorptive capacity” of Palestine; in 1930, committing Britain to an equal obligation to the Jews and the Arabs in Palestine (the restrictions on Jewish emigration was largely removed by 1931); and in 1939, rejecting the concept of partition and again limiting Jewish immigration, this time to 75,000 over the course of five years — even as the machinery of the Holocaust was being erected in Europe.

“[I]t was considered by all Jewish friends of the National Home, Zionist and non-Zionist alike, and by a host of non-Jewish well-wishers, as rendering, and intending to render, our work in Palestine impossible.” —Chaim Weizmann