The British White Paper of May 1939 was one of the most fateful documents in world history and contributed significantly to the tragedy of the Holocaust. While the Arab role in World War II was relatively muted (except for oil to the Allies), their role in restricting the entry of Jews into Palestine was both direct and meaningful. In fact, it was deadly.
The adoption of the White Paper was a product of Arab threats that they would open a new front against the British in the Middle East unless Jewish immigration into Palestine was seriously curtailed.
The Arabs in Palestine (at that time a British Mandate) had fought the British to limit the entry of Jews into Palestine. In response to this threat, the British summoned a meeting with both Jews and Arabs in May 1939.
The White Paper was the result of that meeting. The British decided to limit the number of Jews that would be accepted for entry into Palestine. A sum total of 75,000 would be accepted over five years starting in 1939 (devastatingly, this quota was not even filled by the time the war ended in 1945).
This decision contributed significantly to the fate of European Jews in the Holocaust; Arab refusal to relent on the admission of Jews significantly magnified the number of Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
With the adoption of the White Paper came the stark realization that there was no country that would accept more than a token number of Jews.
Just a few years earlier, James G. McDonald, the League of Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees in the 1930s, had resigned from his position, being unable to find a single country prepared to accept Jewish refugees.
An illustration of the absolute refusal of countries to admit Jews is shown in the fate of the over 930 Jews aboard the ship the St. Louis in May 1939. The passengers on the St. Louis were Jews who had received visas from Cuba. However, when they reached their destination, Cuba refused to accept them.
The ship’s captain had no alternative but to travel back up the Atlantic, passing the shores of Florida where the United States, not yet in the war, could easily have saved the Jews but decided not to do so because “there might be spies aboard.”
Did Arabs copy a Nazi model?
After the war, apparently the Nazi model was not a precedent for the Arabs to condemn, but to copy.
In November 1947, the partition resolution was adopted by a two-thirds majority in the United Nations General Assembly. Thus, while Israel announced that it was accepting Resolution 181 and creating a state, the Arabs had only one aim: the destruction of the Jewish state and the expulsion of its Jewish population.
Palestinian leader Amin al-Husseini, speaking with an interviewer from the Jaffa-based Al Sarih daily newspaper, stated that the Arabs did not intend merely to prevent partition but “would continue fighting until the Zionists were annihilated.”
Likewise, Jamal al-Husayni, “foreign minister” in 1948 in the “All-Palestine government” [the “All-Palestine Protectorate,” declared during the 1948 War of Independence against the newly declared State of Israel, was limited to the Gaza Strip, ruled by Egypt] warned that if the Partition Plan was implemented, “The [Jews’] blood will flow like rivers in the Middle East”.
After the adoption of the Partition Plan by the United Nations, while Israel proposed peace, five Arab countries declared war. The Arabs believed that they would win – and why not, with five states against one? The one state, Israel, won.
The attempt of the Arabs to destroy Israel was simply another attempted Holocaust, which Israel was determined to defeat.
During the Holocaust, the Jews under Nazi rule were helpless. They had neither weapons nor organization nor allies. Their plight was disastrous. This contrasts with the holiday of Purim, which we are about to celebrate.
It is recounted in the Megillah, which we read on Purim, that evil Haman had been granted license by King Achashverosh to kill the entire Jewish community throughout the vast Persian empire – men, women, and children. Queen Esther turned to Achashverosh to cancel the license he had given to Haman.
Achashverosh said that this was impossible because an edict of the monarch could not be canceled but he then offered to do something different – to allow the Jews to defend themselves since only with such a grant were people at liberty to take up arms.
The Megillah relates that the Jews in Shushan, the capital of the empire, were full of joy and delight. But the question arises: Why such exhilaration? The following day, the Jews were to engage in war. Although a war of self-defense, it was likely that lives could be lost and there would be casualties. Nonetheless, it was deliverance from mass murder.
The difference is the parallel between the Holocaust in Europe and the attempted-Holocaust now in the Middle East. Currently, the Jews have the ability to defend themselves both by acquiring the latest weapons, primarily from the United States, and by producing weapons themselves, as well as by galvanizing themselves to fight.
Unlike in the story of the Megillah and during the Holocaust, Jews are presently defending their homeland, the country that was promised to their forefathers.
As they threatened, the Arabs have repeatedly striven to destroy the Jewish state. Israel, in turn, has combated the notorious Arab aggression. Thank heaven for the fortitude of Israeli citizens and especially our brave soldiers. Due to them, the spirit of Purim survives, and the Jewish homeland thrives.
The writer is the James G. McDonald professor of American history, emeritus, and former chairman of the Department of American Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (The article was prepared for print with the assistance of Ellen Goldberg.)
