66. What are the British White Papers of 1922?

Churchill’s White Paper (June/3/1922) is the first of three documents to limit the purchase of lands and Jewish immigration. It was meant to be a “conciliatory” answer to the massacre of 1921 (the British believed that by giving in to the Arab violence they would defuse such anger). The British White Paper concluded that the violence was provoked by the resentment towards the Zionist Jews and the perceived favoritism towards them from the British, as well as Arabs that feared subjugation. While maintaining their commitment to Great Britain through the Balfour Declaration and their promise of a National Jewish Home in Palestine, which was “internationally guaranteed” and “recognized as an ancient historic connection”, the document emphasized that the establishment of a National Jewish Home would not impose the nationality of the Arab inhabitants and “in front of the eyes of the law the state of all the citizens of Palestine will be Palestinian”. To reduce the tension between Arabs and Jews in Palestine, the Papers limited Jewish immigration to “the economic capacity of the country to absorb the newcomers”. During the same process, the British decided to separate the territories east of the river to give to Abdallah, son of Hussein from Mecca, the Arab Emirate of Transjordan (current Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) (article 25 reviewed from the Mandate). This, an obvious violation or contravention to the letter of assignment of the British Mandate written by the League of Nations, only two years after the agreed commitments in the San Remo Conference (1920) The authorities from the World Zionist Organization, led by their president Chaim Weizmann, decided to approve the document. The Arabs rejected it and ordered the return of the commission once it got to London.