The Gulf Crisis and New World Order — Page 213
The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order "By 1929 there were 156,000 immigrants owning 4 per cent of the total area of Palestine, but 14 per cent of its cultivable land. "(page 35) After 1929 and until 1948 when the Mandate came to an end there was a rapid increase in the migration of the Jews to Palestine. In 1947 when the U. N. announced the partition of Palestine, thus creating the State of Israel, the population of the Jews had increased from 85,000 in 1919 to a phenomenal 700,000 in 1947. On May 17, 1939, prior to the beginning of World War II, the British government published a White Paper that spelled a change in its foreign policy. At that time Mr. Chamberlain was heading the British government. He expressed the opinion that the world was standing at the brink o f the Second World War. At that crucial juncture if the British had to choose whether to decide against the Jews and incur their enmity or to decide against the large Muslim Community and antagonize them, then his advise would be to favour the Muslims. Note, that the earlier British decision in this regard was taken soon after World War I, and the second British stance was expressed, as noted above, just before World War II. It was felt that the earlier decision by Britain was based merely on political expediency, and it was not realistic. In pursuance of this decision the British government formally announced in this White Paper that it does not favour establishing a Jewish state in Palestine and that it did not accept the right of the Jews that they should have a separate state in that area. Had the British been honest in their intentions they should have surrendered that Mandate to the League of Nations for the simple reason that this Mandate was assigned to Britain under the conditions that prevailed in 19 I 7, but now, in the present circumstances it was an outdated document. In this way their Mandate would have automatically become obsolete and redundant. But again in 1946, as the war ended, they changed their mind on the decision taken before the war and permitted an extended quota of 100,000 Jews to be settled in Palestine. By 1947, i. e. , towards the end of the period for which th. is Mandate was valid, the United Nations announced a plan according to which Palestine was to be partitioned into two separate states for the Jews and the Muslim Arabs. By this time the Jewish population had swollen to 700,000 as against the Arab population of 213