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Articles
Timeline: Winston Churchill on Palestine, 1945-46
- By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
- | November 27, 2023
- Category: Churchill and the East Explore
In 1906, attributing the remark to “a witty Irishman,” young Winston Churchill told Parliament: “There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.” Has anything changed a 120 years later? Recent events prompt a review of events in Palestine after the Second World War. What did Churchill say about them? Is there is anything to learn from him?
Churchill’s responsibility for British policy ended with the election of July 1945. He was, however, by no means silent about Palestine (West and East), and Britain’s role in it.1 He had had a great deal to do with it over the past quarter century. His thoughts and proposals in the early postwar years illustrate how the region became what it is today.
West Palestine simmered from 1945 to early 1947. Events came thick and fast toward the end of 1947. A year later, a war had been fought, and the State of Israel had been founded. The United States and Soviet Union immediately recognized the new nation. Britain did not, and indeed nearly went to war with Israel during its 1948 war with Egypt and Jordan.
Because of length I have divided this timeline into two parts. This first installment covers the period of “simmering”: Juxtaposed with events are Churchill’s comments. I have avoided personal opinions, leaving conclusions to the reader. “History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.”2 —RML
Prelude
“As 1945 began, three independent Arab States—Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iraq—wanted to know what Britain and the United States intended with regard to the Jewish future in Palestine. Churchill continued to seek a Zionist solution whereby the 517,000 Jews then in West Palestine, just under a third of the Arab population, would have their own State in which they would not be at the mercy of a hostile Arab majority, but able to govern themselves, albeit in only about a third of the area they had hoped for.
“In February, off the coast of Egypt, Churchill called on Roosevelt on board the American warship Quincy. Roosevelt was gravely ill. Churchill had already been shocked at his pallor at the Yalta Conference a week earlier and felt that he did not have long to live. He had in fact only two months.
“Shortly before Churchill called on him on Quincy, Roosevelt had spent several hours with the Saudi monarch, Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman, known as Ibn Saud. It was Churchill who had urged Ibn Saud to meet Roosevelt. FDR, Churchill told the Saudi monarch, was ‘one of my most cherished friends.’ The President’s meeting with Ibn Saud on 14 February was not encouraging for Churchill’s hopes of a future Jewish State in Palestine.” —Martin Gilbert3
The Arab Case, 1945
February
14th. King Ibn Saud to President Roosevelt, USS Quincy: “Arabs and Jews can never cooperate, neither in Palestine nor in any other country…. [What] changed the whole picture was the immigration from Eastern Europe of people who were technically and culturally on a higher level than the Arabs [who] had greater difficulty in surviving economically. [That these] energetic Europeans are Jewish is not the cause of the trouble. It is their superior skills and culture.”4
17th. King Ibn Saud to Winston S. Churchill, Lake Faiyum, Egypt: “The Jews in Palestine are continuously increasing in number; they are even forming a sort of Government of their own, with a prime minister, a foreign minister and a minister of defence. They also had formed a military force of 30,000 men with modern arms and equipment. They have thus become a great danger to the Arabs…. The Arabs would fight the Jews, and, even if they were not victorious, they would not mind because they would go to Paradise. I have continually advised moderation to the Arabs with regard to Palestine, but fear that a clash might come….”5
Churchill, 27 February, House of Commons (HofC): “[King Saud’s] aid will be needed…. I have hopes that when the war is over good arrangements can be made for securing the peace and progress of the Arab world, and generally of the Middle East, and that Great Britain and the United States, which is taking an increasing interest in these regions, will be able to play a valuable part in proving that well-known maxim of the old Free Trader, ‘All legitimate interests are in harmony.’”6
March
2nd. Emir Abdullah to WSC: “The inhabitants of the Arab world are in a ferment over the future of Palestine. The Arabs believe at present that the Jews want to have Palestine only as a means of their future domination of the whole Arab world economically as well as politically.”7
10th. King Ibn Saud to WSC (paraphrased): “The ambitions of the Jews are not confined to Palestine alone. The preparations they have made show that they intend to take hostile action against neighbouring Arab countries…. to create a form of Nazi-Fascism within sight of the democracies and in the midst of the Arab countries….
“Joshua captured the land of the Canaanites—an Arab tribe—with great cruelty and barbarity. The Arabs have been in Palestine since 3500 years before Christ. They have ruled it, alone or with the Turks, for 1300 years. The disjointed rule of the Jews did not exceed 380 confused and sporadic years, ending in 332 BC. For 2200 years there have been few Jews there and they have had no influence…. [They were] aliens who had come to Palestine at intervals and had then been turned out over two thousand years ago.”8
The Jewish Case, 1945
May
22nd. Chaim Weizmann to WSC: “The Jewish people have waited till the end of the German war, not only for their deliverance from Hitler, but also from the injustice of the White Paper of 1939, which has so intensely aggravated both their sufferings and the loss of human life. We remember with gratitude how, in the debate on May 23rd, 1939, the voice of British conscience spoke through you. We have noted how, during the years of war, you have never let yourself be drawn into saying anything which could be interpreted as an acceptance of the White Paper.
“This has enabled me to urge upon my people patience. But now the German war is over. Under your leadership victory has come. Your word could never carry greater weight than it does now. The White Paper still stands. It is prolonging the agony of the Jewish survivors. Will you not say the word which is to right wrongs and set the people free?”9
Churchill to Weizmann, 9 June: “I have received your letter of 22 May, enclosing a Memorandum on behalf of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. There can I fear be no possibility of the question being effectively considered until the victorious Allies are definitely seated at the Peace table.”10
June
15th. Weizmann to WSC: “[Your message] came as a great shock to me. I had always understood from our conversations that our problem would be considered as soon as the German war was over. But your phrase, ‘until the victorious Allies are definitely seated at the Peace table,’ substitutes some indefinite date in the future. I can hardly believe this to have been your intention…. [T]he continuation of the White Paper means confinement to a territorial ghetto consisting of five percent of the area of Western Palestine. They could hardly put up with this during the war; now it becomes unbearable.”11
Churchill to Weizmann, 29 June: “I am afraid I can add nothing to my letter of June 9 except to explain that the Peace table means the Peace table…. I do not know what course the Great Powers will take about this. But I trust that after the July [Potsdam] Conference, before the end of the year, there will be some coherent attempt on the part of the major Allies to settle the various outstanding territorial questions, and that would be the time when the Jewish position in Palestine would rightly fall to be considered….
“It has occurred to me for some time… that it might be a solution of your difficulties if the Mandate were transferred from Britain to the United States who, with her great wealth and strength and strong Jewish elements, might be able to do more for the Zionist cause than Great Britain. I need scarcely say I shall continue to do my best for it. But, as you will know, it has very few supporters in the Conservative Party, and even the Labour Party now seem to have lost all zeal.”12
1945 Timeline
April
12th: Franklin Roosevelt dies at Warm Springs, Georgia; Harry Truman becomes U.S. President.
18th: Allied armies encounter horrific scenes while liberating the concentration camp at Ohrdruf, near Gotha, with Buchenwald: “the acme of atrocity.”
Churchill, 19 April, HofC: “No words can express the horror which is felt by His Majesty’s Government and their principal Allies at the proofs of these frightful crimes now daily coming into view…. I have this morning received an informal message from General Eisenhower saying that the new discoveries, particularly at Weimar, far surpass anything previously exposed.”13
May
8th: V-E Day: Germany surrenders; the war in Europe is over.
31st: Churchill calls for cease-fire in French-Syrian hostilities after France attempts to reassert its authority in Syria and Lebanon. Franco-Syrian negotiations begin.
Churchill, 14 June, HofC: “We have no wish to steal anybody’s property in any portion of the globe…. We are very glad if France can manage for herself in discussions with the Syrians and the Lebanese, so that a satisfactory treaty will be arrived at, and we have said that the moment that that treaty has been reached we will withdraw our troops from the country.”14
July
25th: Labour landslide in British general election. Clement Attlee becomes Prime Minister, Ernest Bevin Foreign Minister. Churchill becomes Leader of the Opposition.
27th: Bevin denies entry into Palestine of 100,000 Holocaust survivors. He rejects Churchill’s assurances to the 1937 Peel Commission “that the British Government contemplated, in due course, a Jewish majority and a Jewish State in Palestine.”
November
13th: Bevin announces that 1939 White Paper restrictions on Jewish immigration to Western Palestine will continue; that Britain favors a Jewish homeland but not a state. President Truman counters that the 100,000 survivors had been authorized by the Anglo-American Inquiry Committee. Riots follow in Tel Aviv, with attacks on police, British military and government buildings.
1946 Timeline
January-March
12 January: Jewish paramilitary Irgun derails a British payroll train, stealing £35,000 and injuring three constables.
25 February: Irgun and Lehi paramilitaries attack RAF airfields at Lydda, Qastina, and Kfar Sirkin.
March: Jerusalem Arab Office submits “The Arab Case for Palestine” to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry: “Arabs of Palestine are descendants of the indigenous inhabitants who have been in occupation of it since the beginning of history. [The Jewish] claim is based upon a historical connection which ceased effectively many centuries ago.”
April-June
17 April: Lebanon and Syria achieve independence as French forces are withdrawn.
25 May: Jordan (East Palestine) achieves independence as British Mandate ends.
29 June: “Black Sabbath”: British Operation Shark searches for arms and makes 787 arrests in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and several dozen Jewish settlements.
July-September
22 July: Retaliating for “Black Sabbath,” Irgun bombs the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, killing ninety-one Arabs, Britons and Jews.
25 July: First meeting of London conference on the future of Palestine, with Arab and Jewish representatives, invited by Prime Minister Attlee.
1 August: Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade, tells Parliament: “The future of Palestine shall not be decided by terrorism and by violence….”
Churchill, 1 August, HofC: “[Cripps] spoke of the past 25 years as being the most unkind or unhappy Palestine has known. I imagine that it would hardly be possible to state the opposite of the truth more compendiously. The years during which we have accepted the Mandate have been the brightest that Palestine has known and were full of hope.
“Of course, there was always friction, because the Jew was, in many cases, allowed to go far beyond the strict limits of the interpretation which was placed upon the Mandate….
“Meanwhile, how did we treat the Arabs? We have treated them very well. The House of Hussein reigns in Iraq. Faisal was placed on the throne, his grandson is there today. The Emir Abdullah, whom I remember appointing at Jerusalem, in 1921 to be in charge of Transjordania, is there today…. Syria and the Lebanon owe their independence to the great exertions made by the British Government….
* * *
“In fact, all sorts of hopes were raised among the Jews of Palestine, just as other hopes were raised elsewhere. However, when the months slipped by and no decided policy or declaration was made by the present Government, a deep and bitter resentment spread throughout the Palestine Jewish community….
“The disappointment and disillusionment of the Jews at the procrastination and indecision of the British Labour Government are no excuse, as we have repeatedly affirmed here, for the dark and deadly crimes which have been committed by the fanatical extremists, and these miscreants and murderers should be rooted out and punished with the full severity of the law.
“It is quite clear, however, that this crude idea of letting all the Jews of Europe go into Palestine has no relation either to the problem of Europe or to the problem which arises in Palestine.”
* * *
Mr. Sidney Silverman: “The Rt. Hon. Gentleman is not suggesting, is he, that any Jew who regarded a country in Europe as nothing but the graveyard and cemetery of all his relatives, friends and hopes should be compelled to stay there if he did not want to do so?”
Mr. Churchill: “I am against preventing Jews from doing anything which other people are allowed to do. I am against that, and I have the strongest abhorrence of the idea of anti-Semitic lines of prejudice.
“We have never sought or got anything out of Palestine. We have discharged a thankless, painful, costly, laborious, inconvenient task for more than a quarter of a century with a very great measure of success…. It is Great Britain, and Great Britain alone, which has steadfastly carried that cause forward across a whole generation to its present actual position, and the Jews all over the world ought not to be in a hurry to forget that.
“I had always intended to put it to our friends in America, from the very beginning of the postwar discussions, that either they should come in and help us in this Zionist problem, about which they feel so strongly….
“We declare ourselves ready to abandon the mighty Empire and Continent of India with all the work we have done in the last 200 years, territory over which we possess unimpeachable sovereignty. The Government are, apparently, ready to leave the 400 million Indians to fall into all the horrors of sanguinary civil war—civil war compared to which anything that could happen in Palestine would be microscopic; wars of elephants compared with wars of mice.
* * *
“Here is the action—action this day. I think the Government should say that if the United States will not come and share the burden of the Zionist cause, as defined or as agreed, we should now give notice that we will return our Mandate to U.N.O. and that we will evacuate Palestine within a specified period. At the same time, we should inform Egypt that we stand by our treaty rights and will, by all means, maintain our position in the Canal Zone.
“Those are the two positive proposals which I submit, most respectfully, to the House. In so far as the Government may have hampered themselves in any way from adopting these simple policies, they are culpable in the last degree, and the whole Empire and the Commonwealth will be the sufferers from their mismanagement.”15
October-December
4 October: President Truman supports Jewish Agency proposal for separate Arab and Jewish states, angering British Foreign Minister Bevin, who believes this ends any chance of agreement.
8 October: London Conference on Palestine adjourns, having rejected the Morrison-Grady Plan for Anglo-American Trusteeship of Western Palestine with autonomous Arab and Jewish areas. Churchill and Truman had both supported Morrison-Grady.
November: Arabs propose an Arab state in West Palestine with minority protection and citizenship for the Jewish population. Jewish Agency rejects any plan that does not include an independent Jewish State.
Churchill, 12 November, HofC: “[I]t is impossible to avoid expressing deep regret at the many changes of tactics and method, at the needless disappointment created throughout world Jewry by the failure to fulfill the hopes which the party opposite excited by their promises and convictions at the General Election, and above all, at the lack of any policy worthy of the name. This absence of any policy or decision on these matters, which have become more complicated as they proceed, has allowed havoc and hatred to flare and run rife throughout Palestine for more than a year and no one knows where we are today.
* * *
“I cannot, in any way, recede from the advice which I have ventured to give, namely, that if we cannot fulfill our promises to the Zionists, we should without delay place our mandate for Palestine at the feet of the United Nations, and give due notice of our impending evacuation of that country. If this offer is accepted, a burden, which has become too heavy and too invidious for us to bear alone, will have been lifted from our shoulders and placed in international safe-keeping….
“I am not at all deterred in recommending this course by the fact that it has been demanded by the Soviet Government. I was rather glad to find that our minds are flowing in the same direction in one aspect of international affairs….
“To abandon India, with all the dire consequences that would follow therefrom, but to have a war with the Jews in order to give Palestine to the Arabs amid the execration of the world, appears to carry incongruity of thought and policy to levels which have rarely been attained in human history.”16
Sequel
On 14 February 1947 the London Conference on Palestine adjourned for the last time with no decisions reached. Arab delegates denied any form of partition or the renewal of Jewish immigration. The Jewish Agency, whose attendance had been sporadic, rejected any solution other than partition into two separate states.
On 17 February, Ernest Bevin announced that Britain was unable to solve the problem. It would therefore pass it to the United Nations. Prime Minister Attlee announced that Britain would terminate the Mandate of Western Palestine on 15 May 1948. The stage was set for a definite British departure date, as it would be for India. As in India, this also set the stage for violence.
Churchill, 12 March 1947: “Then there is Palestine: £82 million since the Socialist Government came into power squandered in Palestine, and 100,000 Englishmen now kept away from their homes and work, for the sake of a senseless squalid war with the Jews in order to give Palestine to the Arabs, or God knows who. ‘Scuttle,’ everywhere, is the order of the day—Egypt, India, Burma. One thing at all costs we must preserve: the right to get ourselves world-mocked and world-hated over Palestine, at a cost of £82 million.”17
Concluded in Part 2.
Endnotes
1 “Palestine,” as mandated to Britain included not only Israel, Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). It also included the territory east of the river that is now Jordan. The comments here mainly concern West Palestine.
2 Winston S. Churchill (hereinafter WSC), House of Commons, 12 November 1940, in Richard M. Langworth, Churchill by Himself (New York: Rosetta Books, 2016), 53.
3 Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews (New York: Henry Holt, 2007), 231.
4 Ibid., 232-33.
5 Ibid., 235.
6 WSC, House of Commons, 27 February 1945, in Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, 8 vols. (New York: Bowker, 1974), VII: 7121.
7 Emir Abdullah letter, shown to Churchill on 25 March (Premier Papers 4/52/2).
*
8 Ibn Saud letter, 10 March 1945, shown to Churchill on 2 May (Premier papers, 4/52/2). Churchill had first heard and rebutted these arguments with the Arab delegation in Jerusalem, 28 March 1921. (His last two sentences are from his American mentor Bourke Cockran.) From Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. IV, World in Torment 1916-1922 (Hillsdale College Press, 2008), 564-66:
“[I]t is manifestly right that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national centre and a National Home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than 3000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated? We think it will be good for the world, good for the Jews and good for the British Empire. But we also think it will be good for the Arabs….
“There is no reason why Palestine should not support a larger number of people than it does at present, and all of those in a higher condition of prosperity…. If instead of sharing miseries through quarrels you will share blessings through cooperation, a bright and tranquil future lies before your country. The earth is a generous mother. She will produce in plentiful abundance for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.”
*
9 Martin Gilbert and Larry P. Arnn, eds., The Churchill Documents, vol. 21, The Shadows of Victory, January-July 1945 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2018), 1509. The 23 May 1939 Palestine White Paper, opposed by Churchill, limited Jewish immigration to the Palestine Mandate to 75,000 for the next five years and called for establishing “a Jewish national home” in an independent Palestinian state within ten years. It rejected the 1937 Peel Commission proposal for partitioning Palestine into Arab and Jewish states and a British-administered international zone around Jerusalem.
10 Shadows of Victory, 1645.
11 Ibid., 1718-19.
12 Ibid., 1799.
13 Complete Speeches, VII: 7145.
14 Ibid., 7191.
15 Ibid., 7373-79.
16 Ibid., 7404.
17 Ibid., 7453.
Further reading: Palestine before 1945
David Fromkin, “The Modern Middle East: How Much is Churchill’s Fault?,” 2023.
William John Shepherd, “A New Account of Churchill Remaking the Middle East, by Brad Faught,” 2023.
Ronald I. Cohen, “Churchill, the Jews and Israel,” 2016.
Erica L. Chenoweth, “British Miscalculations and the Rise of Muslim Fanaticism, by Isaiah Friedman,” 2016.
Audio
Sara Reguer: “A Conversation on Churchill and the Middle East, 1919-1922,” 2021.