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of 1929, which saw a total of 139
Jews killed across the country, half
of them in Hebron, which was the
oldest Jewish community in the
world. Eye-witness Rivka Burg said,
“All the leaders of the community
– my father, the Ashkenazi rabbi,
and the Sephardi rabbi and my
brother all went to the Governor
to ask for protection.”* The
protection was refused. The British British troops in Hebron following the massacre in 1929
© Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem
response was to expel the entire
Jewish community from Hebron.
The most severe sentence any Britain’s policy of appeasing Arab
of the perpetrators received was demands led to further violence, “After the period of
18 months in prison. The British and culminated in the White Paper five years no further
refused to protect Jewish civilians of May 1939. By this time the Jews immigration will be
in other massacres too, one of the in parts of Europe were in the grip
most notable was the Hadassah of Nazi persecution, and many permitted unless the Arabs
Hospital Convoy massacre in April wanted to escape to their ancestral of Palestine are prepared
1948, in which 78 people died. home. The White Paper severely to acquiesce in it. Now
restricted Jewish immigration, there is the breach; there is
The specific purpose of the without which a viable Jewish state the violation of the pledge;
Mandate for Palestine was to create could not be formed. Moreover, the there is the abandonment
“such political, administrative 1939 White Paper called for the
and economic conditions as Jewish population of Palestine not of the Balfour Declaration;
will secure the establishment to exceed one-third of the total. The there is the end of the
of the Jewish national home […] Permanent Mandates Commission vision, of the hope, of the
and the development of self- of the League of Nations stated that dream.”
governing institutions” (Article 2) Britain was violating the legal terms
– i.e. a Jewish State. To this end, of the Mandate. In a fierce debate
Britain was explicitly directed to in the House of Commons, Winston
“facilitate Jewish immigration” and Churchill, who would become Prime The 1939 White Paper effectively
“encourage […] close settlement Minister a year later, said of the trapped the Jewish people in
by Jews” (Article 6). However, White Paper: Nazi-occupied Europe, and many

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