The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

avoid discussion of Palestine during the Evian Conference. A definitive solution to the
question of the Mandate awaited the outcome of the forthcoming London Conference
regarding the potential division of Palestine into an Arab and Jewish State.
Consequently, it was necessary to place “certain restrictions of a purely temporary
[author’s italics] and exceptional character” on Jewish immigration in order to maintain
the relative size of the two populations. 12
Since the Arabs refused to directly negotiate
with Palestinian Jewry it is likely that the London Conference was viewed by His
Majesty’s Government as a delaying tactic with little chance of success.
These restrictions eventually became formalized in the White Paper of 1939 in
which Jewish immigration was to be limited for five years and then ended. In order to
minimize the expected opposition from Palestinian and American Jews Britain did
increase Jewish immigration into the United Kingdom until the beginning of the war.
During this period fifty thousand Jewish refugees were admitted while the U.S. allowed
entry to 57,000. 13
Winterton did warn, however, that other governments should not
become involved in the internal affairs of Palestine for which Britain “as the mandatory
power bore sole responsibility.” 14 He was prepared, on the other hand, to offer some
degree of consolation to the increasingly desperate German and Austrian Jews: Kenya
(and possibly Northern Rhodesia) could offer opportunities for “small-scale settlement”
12 “Proceedings,” July 15, 1938, 42.
13 Arieh J. Kochavi Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States & Jewish Refugees, 1945-1948
(Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 7.
14 Sherman, Island Refuge, 116.
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