Closing the Circle: Jerusalem
Closing the Circle: Jerusalem
 

The year was 1938, and Britannia ruled the waves and the borders surrounding the Land of Israel. It had been 21 years since His Majesty’s Government had issued the Balfour Declaration, stating that “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. On the strength of this, the League of Nations awarded Britain the Mandate for Palestine in 1920, charging Britain to establish the Jewish

Britain had turned against world Jewry on the same day that Nazi Germany began the countdown to the Final Solution.

national home.

      The love-story between Britain and the Jewish nation flourished briefly, but swiftly turned sour as Britain began wooing Arab support for her colonial adventures. Britain’s policy was crystallized in the White Paper of 1939. (It was actually published in 1938, but became official policy the following year, hence the name.) Known as the MacDonald White Paper because of Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary who presided over it, the White Paper rescinded the earlier Peel Commission partition plan. Instead, Palestine was to remain a single country.

 For five years, 1940-1944, Jewish immigration into Palestine would be limited to 10,000 per year. Up to 25,000 additional Jews for the entire 5-year period might have been admitted to cover refugee emergencies, but since this was to happen only after “the High Commissioner is satisfied that adequate provision for their maintenance is ensured”, even this token humanitarian gesture was to be delayed indefinitely. Meanwhile, Arab immigration would be unlimited. Jews were to be banned from buying land in almost all of Palestine, while Arabs would still be free to settle wherever they might want.

      At the end of the 5-year period, the Arabs would decide on future immigration rules. After a further 5 years – that is, in 1949 – Palestine would become independent, and power would then be distributed between Arabs and Jews in proportion to their numbers.

      In simple terms, this was Britain’s conversion of Palestine from the Jewish National Home into the super Jewish death-trap.

      The White Paper was published on 9th November 1938. Scant hours later, 800 km (500 miles) east of Whitehall, the horrors of Kristallnacht began: in the first country-wide officially-organised pogrom in Nazi Germany, 91 Jews were murdered, and some 30,000 were arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps. 267 synagogues – almost all the synagogues in Germany – were destroyed, and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked. In historical terms, Kristallnacht was the start of the Holocaust.

      The situation for Jews looked grim indeed: by a hideous irony, Britain had turned against world Jewry on the same day that Nazi Germany began the countdown to the Final Solution.

      The British parliament was to debate the White Paper for another half a year. The House of Commons eventually adopted the White Paper as official policy, approved by 268 votes to 179 against, on May 17th 1939. It seemed as though the Jewish National Home had been aborted before it could even breathe.

      But, as so often happens in Jewish history, “many are the thoughts in man’s heart – but Hashem’s counsel is what will arise” (Proverbs 19:21). May 17th 1939, the day that the White Paper became Britain’s official policy, corresponds to 28th Iyyar 5699. The terrors of the Holocaust still lay ahead, and after that unceasing wars and Arab terrorism within the Land of Israel. The path was wearying and terrifying. But on the 28th of Iyyar 5727, twenty-eight years to the day since Britain began enforcing the White Paper, we returned to Jerusalem. That was the day that Israeli forces captured the Old City of Jerusalem, restoring Jewish sovereignty there for the first time since King Antigonus the Hasmonean, 2,007 years previously.