Palestine: Statement of Policy by his Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom. Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of His Majesty July 1937 [“White Paper”]

(ZIONISM)

H.M. Stationary Office

London

1937

Seal of the British Empire on title

The White Paper of July 1937 contains the statement of British government policy issued together with the report of the Royal Commission on Palestine- the Peel Commission. It states that the British government accepts in principle the Commission’s partition plan and would take the necessary steps to put that plan into effect. Additionally, the British government would not surrender its responsibilities for peace, order and good government throughout Palestine until the establishment of Jewish and Arab states. In the interim period, the government would take two steps; to limit any land transactions which might prejudice such a partition scheme and to limit immigration between August 1937 and March 1938 to 8,000. The partition proposal of the Peel Commission was a revolutionary solution to the Palestine problem and a concept that dominated attempts for peace in the region culminating with the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947, the Arab rejection of which sparked the War of Independence in 1948. The White Paper, six of which were issued between the years 1922 and 1939, played an important part in the history of Mandatory Palestine. See EJ XVI, col. 482-5