Saturday, August 15, 2015

Pre-State Israel: The San Remo Conference (April 1920) - British Restrictions on Jewish Immigration



Pre-State Israel:
The San Remo Conference

(April 1920)

Pre-State Israel: Table of Contents | Balfour Declaration | Peace Efforts


The San Remo Conference was an international meeting held following the conclusion of World War I that determined the precise boundaries for territories captured by the Allies.
The conference, attended by Great Britain, France,Italy, and Japan- with the United States as a neutral observer, was held in San Remo, Italy, in April 1920. The conference was a continuation of a previous meeting between these Allied powers that had been held in London in February 1920, where it was decided, among other things, to put Palestine underBritish Mandatory rule. At San Remo, the Allies confirmed the pledge contained in the Balfour Declaration concerning the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
The British delegation to San Remo was headed by Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Lord Curzon, who had replaced Lord Balfour as foreign minister in 1919. Balfour, however, was also present at the conference as a consultant for final settlement issues. At both meetings the French expressed many reservations about the inclusion of the Balfour Declaration in the peace treaty, and it was only after the exertion of British pressure that they were gradually persuaded to agree to it.
The Conference was also attended by Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow, and Herbert Samuel, who presented a memorandum to the British delegation on the final settlement in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The article concerning Palestine was debated on April 24 and the next day it was finally resolved to incorporate the Balfour Declaration in Britain's mandate in Palestine. Thus Britain was made responsible "for putting into effect the declaration made on the 8th [sic.] November 1917 by the British Government and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people; it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
The resolution at San Remo was celebrated by mass rallies throughout the Jewish world.
Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.

L. Stein, The Balfour Declaration (1961), 652–63; C. Weizmann, Trial and Error (1949), 321–5; D. Lloyd George, The Truth About the Peace Conference, 2 (1938), 1167–75, 1182–90; J. Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East (1969), 240–54 and index.

Immigration to Israel:
British Restrictions on Jewish Immigration to Palestine

(1919 - 1942)

Immigration: Table of Contents | Law of Return | Immigration Statistics

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Herbert Samuel, a British Jew who served as the first High Commissioner of Palestine, placed restrictions on Jewish immigration “in the ‘interests of the present population’ and the ‘ absorptive capacity’ of the country.”1 The influx of Jewish settlers was said to be forcing the Arab fellahin (native peasants) from their land. This was at a time when less than a million people lived in an area that now supports more than six million.
The British actually limited the absorptive capacity of Palestine by partitioning the country.
In 1921, Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill rewarded Sherif Hussein’s son Abdullah for his contribution to the war against Turkey. As a consolation prize for the Hejaz and Arabia going to the Saud family, Churchill installed him as emir. Churchill severed nearly four-fifths of Palestine—some 35,000 square miles—to create a brand new Arab emirate, Transjordan.
The British went further and placed restrictions on Jewish land purchases in what remained of Palestine, contradicting the provision of the Mandate (Article 6) that stated “the Administration of Palestine...shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency...close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not acquired for public purposes.” By 1949, however, the British had allotted 87,500 acres of the 187,500 acres of cultivable land to Arabs and only 4,250 acres to Jews.2
This made for Jewish aquistion of immigration certificates extremely difficult. As the world entered the second world war, requests for entry were difficult to accomdate to Jews all over the world. Correspondence between governing officials in Palestine and Greek Jewish authority demonstrate the sheer inflexibility.
Ultimately, the British admitted the argument about the absorptive capacity of the country was specious. The Peel Commission said: “The heavy immigration in the years 1933-36 would seem to show that the Jews have been able to enlarge the absorptive capacity of the country for Jews.”3
The British response to Jewish immigration set a precedent of appeasing the Arabs, which was followed for the duration of the Mandate. The British placed restrictions on Jewish immigration while allowing Arabs to enter the country freely. Arab populations were not considered when attempting to estimate the country's absorptive capactiy.

Jewish vs. Arab Immigration

During World War I, the Jewish population declined because of the war, famine, disease and expulsion. In 1915, approximately 83,000 Jews lived in Palestine among 590,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs. According to the 1922 census, the Jewish population was 84,000, while the Arabs numbered 643,000.4 Thus, the Arab population continued to grow exponentially even while that of the Jews stagnated.
In the mid-1920s, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased primarily because of anti-Jewish economic legislation in Poland and Washington’s imposition of restrictive quotas.5
The record number of immigrants in 1935 (see table) was a response to the growing persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. The British administration considered this number too large, however, so the Jewish Agency was informed that less than one-third of the quota it asked for would be approved in 1936.6
The British gave in further to Arab demands by announcing in the 1939 White Paper that an independent Arab state would be created within 10 years, and that Jewish immigration was to be limited to 75,000 for the next five years, after which it was to cease altogether. It also forbade land sales to Jews in 95 percent of the territory of Palestine. The Arabs, nevertheless, rejected the proposal.
By contrast, throughout the Mandatory period, Arab immigration was unrestricted. In 1930, the Hope Simpson Commission, sent from London to investigate the 1929 Arab riots, said the British practice of ignoring the uncontrolled illegal Arab immigration from Egypt, Transjordan and Syria had the effect of displacing the prospective Jewishimmigrants.7
The British Governor of the Sinai from 1922-36 observed: “This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria, and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in to share that misery.”8
The Peel Commission reported in 1937 that the “shortfall of land is, we consider, due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population.”9

No Refuge From the Holocaust

The gates of Palestine remained closed for the duration of the war, stranding hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe, many of whom became victims of Hitler’s Final Solution. After the war, the British refused to allow the survivors of the Nazi nightmare to find sanctuary in Palestine. On June 6, 1946, President Truman urged the British government to relieve the suffering of the Jews confined to displaced persons camps in Europe by immediately accepting 100,000 Jewish immigrants. Britain's Foreign Minister, Ernest Bevin, replied sarcastically that the United States wanted displaced Jews to immigrate to Palestine “because they did not want too many of them in New York.”10
Some Jews were able to reach Palestine, many by way of dilapidated ships that members of the Jewish resistance organizations smuggled in. Between August 1945 and the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, 65 “illegal ” immigrant ships, carrying 69,878 people, arrived from European shores. In August 1946, however, the British began to intern those they caught in camps in Cyprus. Approximately 50,000 people were detained in the camps, 28,000 of whom were still imprisoned when Israel declared independence.11

Sources: 
1Aharon Cohen, Israel and the Arab World, (NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), p. 172; Howard Sachar, A History Of Israel, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 146.
2Moshe Auman, “Land Ownership in Palestine 1880-1948,” in Michael Curtis, et al., The Palestinians, (NJ: Transaction Books, 1975), p. 25.
3Palestine Royal Commission Report (the Peel Report), (London: 1937), p. 300.[Henceforth Palestine Royal Commission Report].
4Arieh Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession, (Tel Aviv: Hidekel Press, 1984), p. 28; and Porath, pp. 17-18.
5Yehoshua Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918-1929, (London: Frank Cass, 1974), p. 18.
6Cohen, p. 53.
7John Hope Simpson, Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, (London, 1930), p. 126.
8Palestine Royal Commission Report, p. 291.
9Palestine Royal Commission Report, p. 242.
10 George Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, (NC: Duke University Press, 1990), p. 23.
11Cohen p. 174.

Pre-State Israel:
Jewish Defense Organizations

Pre-State Israel: Table of Contents | Balfour Declaration | Hebron Massacre

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Haganah members pose in 1948

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Defense Organizations

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