BRITISH POLICY CRITICISED

Evening Star, Issue 23324, 21 July 1939, Page 9

BRITISH POLICY CRITICISED

HANDLING OF PALESTINE PROBLEM “INCOMPATIBLE WITH TERMS OF THE MANDATE " OPPOSITION'S VOICE IN COMMONS (British Official Wireless.) Press Association — By Telegraph— Copyright ~RUGBY, July 20. (Received July 21, at 11 a.in.) In the House of Commons Palestine debate Mr Malcolm MacDonald gave an assurance that if the Council of the League of Nations reached a decision which involved, in the Government’s view, an alteration in the mandate, the Government would take no steps to bring about that alteration until Parliament had the opportunity to consider it. Opposition speakers strongly opposed the Government’s policy as expressed in the recent White Paper. Mr Thomas Williams said this policy was a further surrender to aggression, and placed a premium on violence and terror. He criticised the suspension of Jewish immigration, and declared that the Government was not fulfilling its pledges by using the iron hand not against Hitler or the Grand Mufti or the murderers and terrorists in Palestine, but against refugees fleeing from Nazi terrorism. Sir Arnold Wilson said that at the best Palestine could never accommodate more than a small portion of refugees, and that nothing like the present situation had been envisaged at the time of the Balfour Declaration. Mr George Mander said he believed it was true that five or seven members of the Permanent Mandates Commission had denounced the Government’s policy as incompatible with the terms of the mandate. MR MACDONALD DEFENDS POLICY. Mr MacDonald said action by Britain which would do most to destroy any hopes there might be of peace in Palestine would be to determine on a policy and then either reverse it or hesitate about it, thus showing lack of confidence in it, and therefore starting another long period of having no policy at all. “ I believe the House would recognise that there is no policy which would produce immediate peace in Palestine. It was never claimed that the White Paper policy would produce that early peace. I said on more than one occasion that the bitterness and hatred of the last few years had gone far too deep for that. Time must be allowed to elapse for tempers to cool down, but I do believe that the White Paper policy contained the basis on which eventually the Jewish people and the Arabs could settle down side by side, and on which ultimately they will find peace together. An honourable member has criticised the policy for other reasons. He criticised it on the ground that it breaks the pledges which we made to the Jewish people. I entirely disagree with that contention. We hear a great deal in this House about promises which have been made to the Jews, but we hear very few references from the benches opposite about the promises which we made to the Arabs in Palestine, and promises which we made to the Jewish people have been balanced from the very beginning by the promises which we made to the Arab people;” “It is necessary to reconcile these two sets of promises. We not only regard the White Paper policy as necessary in order ultimately to establish peace in Palestine, but of carrying out faithfully the promises made to the Jews on the one hand and to the Arabs on the other.

“ Other Governments besides Britain are concerned in this matter. The members of the League of Nations have got a responsibility in this matter, and carry a very great weight. Members of the commission are in the process of completing their report, and they have sent their observations and the minutes of their private discussions to representatives of the accredited Governments concerned, and have asked for our comment on what they have written. The report cannot be completed until those comments have been put in.” (Referring to reports in the Press as to the views of the Permanent Mandates Commission, Mr MacDonald said it would be utterly improper for him, however great the temptation, to make observations on those alleged facts. The report of the commission had not yet been completed, and in any case it was an absolutely secret document until it had been published. He could give an assurance that the Government would lose no time in putting in its comments so that the League itself could publish the report as soon as it desired,

Mr MacDonald said) ho did not agree that the Government’s policy was a departure from the terms of the mandate, and if any member were apprehensive that the Government might take action involving an alteration in the mandate before the House had had an opportunity to consider it, ho could give the House the assurance straight away that the House would) be consulted.

Turning to the question of the closing of the quota for immigrants in the next six-monthly period because of the volume of illegal immigration, Mr MacDonald stated that we should be committing a breach of the White Paper policy if we had not taken that decision. The Government was not indifferent to the fate of the refugees from Central Europe—the very reverse was the truth. The Government did not believe that Palestine could provide a solution of the whole of the refugee problem. Mr MacDonald concluded by giving the figures for illegal immigration into Palestine, and stated that about 8,000

illegal immigrants had either got into Palestine or were about to go there at the present time. About 40 per cent, of these illegal immigrants did noli come from Germany at all, but from Poland and Rumania. “ What is going on about the immigration of Polish and Rumanian Jews makes it perfectly clear that this ia an organised movement to break tha immigration law in Palestine for the sake of breaking the law. It is an organised movement to try to smash the White Paper policy. I say it is a condition we cannot tolerate. It is destined to make- the Arab population suspicious of the sincerity of Britain in carrying out the White Paper policy,This illegal immigration is aggravating the bitter hostility and hatred that! exists between the Arabs and Jews in Palestine. I think we are entitled to appeal to the Jewish authorities and the Jewish people to put a check upon this. Whatever may have been happening to them in other parts of th® world, inside the British Empire they have always enjoyed absolute equality of status and rights with other subjects of the King. Now, in time of tlioir greatest trouble, the British people are their very best friends.”