As in the previous massacres (1920-1921), the British called for an investigating commission that concluded that the best way to calm aggressions was to disengage a bit more from the Balfour Declaration. The Passfield White Paper (Oct/20/1930) was issued by the colonial Secretary, Lord Sydney Webb Passfield, a formal declaration of the British policy on Palestine, previously established by the Churchill White Paper (1922). The new declaration resulted from the investigation by the Hope-Simpson Commission on the causes of the massacres of 1929. The paper stated that “with no available lands”, the lands could be sold to the Jews only if it didn’t harm the Arabs. It limited the capacity to absorb Jewish immigrants and to provide employment as long as there would be an improvement in the unemployment within the Arab sector. The British accepted that they had made contradictory promises to the Arabs, and therefore advised organizing a Legislative Council representing both sides. In response to the British document, the main supporter of the Zionist-British Alliance, the President of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann, resigned his post. Zionist organizations worldwide set up a vigorous campaign against the document. In Great Britain, Prime Minister Ramsay McDonald was consequently forced to clarify the White Paper to the British House of Commons. In a letter to Chaim Weizmann in 1931 (the MacDonald Letter) he tried to calm the Zionists, though, at the same time, the Arabs were labeling the document “the Black Letter”. However, the British Prime Minister addressed the Parliament on Feb/11/1931 stating he was “quite unwilling to give the letter the same status as the dominating document”. In other words, he was confirming that the Passfield White Paper was more important than his own clarification letter.
