Palestine. Correspondence with the Palestine Arab Delegation and the Zionist Organisation. [The Churchill White Paper.]

(ZIONISM)

His Majesty’s Stationery Office

London

1922

Seal of British Crown

To assuage Arab fears aroused by the Balfour Declaration, which provided for “the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine,” the British Government reversed itself. In this, the first of six “White Papers,” the Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill,states that there is no question of Palestine becoming “as Jewish as England is English” (p. 18). The Arab inhabitants of the land need have no fear of “the disappearance or the subordination of the Arabic population, language or culture in Palestine” (ibid.). Also addressed by the Paper is that of limiting Jewish immigration, for the Arabs were fearful that they would soon be outnumbered. Despite the diminution the Paper made to Jewish aspirations, the Zionist Executive reluctantly accepted the policy, while the Palestinian Arabs rejected it. See EJ, Vol. XVI, cols. 482-3