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56 D.S.Solod to I.V.Samylovskii (Moscow)

COPY:AVP RF,F.0118,OP.2,P.2,D.6,LL.6-10

Beirut, 3 January 1946

Secrect

To the head of the Near East Department of the People’ Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Comrade I.V.Samylovskii,

   I enclose translations of some material on the Palestine question which I think will be of interest to the department.

   It is well known that the present situation in Palestine question whit regard to Jewish immigration was determined by the British White Paper of 1939, according to

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which 75,000 1 Jewish immigrants were to be allowed in. this was to bring an end to the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, as proclaimed in the well-known Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917.

   Since then, especially in connection with World War II, the Palestine question does not seem to have been of any urgent or compelling interest.

   The origin of the present period of aggravation can be found in the statements of the American Republican, and later Democratic, parties during the presidential campaign of 1944.2

   The American parties’ statements aroused some anxiety in Arab countries, which explains why the King of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud, and the president of the Syrian Republic, Shukri al-Quwwatli, both sent letters to Present Roosevelt in March after their conversation with him in Cairo on his way back from the Yalta conference3. these letters are enclosed4.

   A second period of polemics about Palestine arose following Present Truman’s statement that the Palestine question had been discussed by the Americans and the British at the Potsdam conference in August 1945.5  In the polemics of this period, we should note the comment of the secretary of the Arab League,Abd al-Rahman Azzam Bey, that the Arabs cannot understand why the Russians are not taking part in resolving the Palestine question, if it is an international issue (see appendix of 19 August).

   The new surge of activity surrounding the Palestine question, which is still going on, flared up in the middle of September when Truman’s proposal to allow the immigration to Palestine of 100,000 Jews from Western Europe become known6.

注释

1.The original erroneously has 175,000.

2.Both parties included statements in their presidential election platforms which endorsed the main Zionist demands.

3.Roosevelt, in fact, met only King Ibn Saud at the Great Bitter Lake, mid-way down the Suez Canal on board the American destroyer Murphy. Letters of protest regarding Zionism in Palestine were sent by heads of all seven Arab state: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Transjordan, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Egypt (FRUS, 1945, Vol, VIII, pp.691-3).

4.See note 10 below.

5.The New York Times of 17 August 1945 reported:’ The president was asked about this government’s position on the Palestine question during his press conference. He has been asked whether the question of a Jewish national state had been mentioned during the Big Three’s conversations. He said that the matter had been discussed with former Prime Minister Churchill and Prime Minister Attlee but nowt with Premier Stalin since, as the president put it, there was nothing that the Generajissimo could do about it anyway. Later in the press conference he was asked directly:’ What was the American position on Palestine?’ President Truman’s reply follows in substance: The Americans’ view on Palestine is that we want to let as many of the Jews into Palestine as it is possible to let into the country and still maintain civil peace. That matter will have to be worked out with the British and the Arabs for a Jewish state. But there is no idea in the mind of the president or his advisors of sending a strong military force of, say 500,000, soldiers overseas to keep the peace in Palestine.

6.On 13 September it was made known that President Truman had written a personal letter to Prime Minister Attlee requesting that Britain permit the immediate immigration to Palestine of 100,000 Jewish Dps (see FRUS, 1945,Vol.VIII,p.742).

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   All the activity of this period, which was accompanied by disorder and provocation in Palestine7, led to the well-known statement on 13 November by British Foreign Minister Bevin in the House of Commons8; the establishment of the Anglo-American Committee, which united all the main Arab parties in Palestine, that is, something like the Peel Commission of 1937 and the Arab Higher Committee of that time; and the convocation of the Arab League council, which declared a boycott of Zionist industrial products9.

   All this material deserves detailed analysis, but I believe that you have alreadly made a study of that kind, so I will confine myself to the following brief remarks:

1.The urgency and seriousness of the Palestine question arose and exists because it is for many  reasons the key issue in Anglo-American differences on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.

The point is that with a view to the anticipated development o the oil industry in Saudi Arabia, it is very important for the Americans to secure their position on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and to extend the Arabian oil pipeline there so that it should not without serious objections from, and possibly even clashes with, Britain.

   For Britain, the most vulnerable part of this area is Palestine. Although it is a mandated British territory, the unsettled question of creating a Jewish home coucld enable the Americans to find a solution which would not be a direct contravention of British privileges in Palestine, but would at the same time give the Americans, through the Jewish ‘home’ or ‘state’, a chance to displace the British economically and politically.

   Although neither side has made these positions explicit, in practice they make Palestine the centre of Anglo-American differences in the Middle East.

   The Americans can certainly lay a pipeline to Lebanon, and they have already made sure of this by concluding an agreement on the construction of oil refineries; but this would lengthen the pipeline and take it further from the main Mediterranean transport route.

注释

7.Reference is to the combined resistance activies of Jewish underground forces in Palestine (see Doc.55,n.2).

8.Reference is to Bevin’s declaration of policy on Palestine and the formation of the join: Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry. For background to this committee, see Political Documents of the Jewish Agency, Vol.I, Editorial Note, pp.201-2.

9. See Doc.55,n.6.

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   2.The formation of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry may mean that with these ends in view the Americans are trying to reach a solution which would give the Jewish part of Palestine autonomous or independent status. The British are unlikely to raise much objection to this American plan. True, Lord Samuel, in which he opposes the partition of Plalestine, is to be found at the end of the appendices. However, in their effort to strengthen Irap and to create a counterweight to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the British might agree to such a partition of Palestine. They would fortify Iraq at the expense of Palestine and Transjordan, and in the process secure their own position in the Middle East.

   3.The Arab League Council’s announcement of a boycott of Zionist industry and its

obsequious reply to Bevin’s statement is a rather good manoeuvre by the British, which could well lead to the partition of Palestine. This fascist device of inflaming racial hatred will distract the Arabs’ attention from the real factors hindering a solution to the Palestine question, and will creat a favourable argument for the need to preserve the existing Jewish home against the visible threat to it by the surrounding Arab countries.

   Moreover, the boycott of Zionist industry, which in present circumstances in Palestine cannot be distinguished from Jewish industry, creates favourable conditions for the British to get a large quantity of orders for their own goods from Arab countries. This will restore their economic position in these countries, since the war had led to the development of Palestinian consumer goods production to the point at which it was beginning to compete seriously with British industry. True, nobody here is paying serious attention to the announcement of the boycott, for Arab merchants are laying in large stocks of Palestinian goods. When the council’s decision on the boycott comes into force they can pass off these Palestinian goods as liftovers in the warehouses, and can do quite well out of this. Even so, the boycott is bound to increase orders to British and American firms.

   4.No matter how the Palestine issue is resolved, whether the Americans manage to displace the British or not, I believe that in either case a solution reached without our participation will not be to our advantage. Therefore, in a wholly timely and justified manner we can and ought to demand to participate in the solution of this question, since the Jews in Europe are to be found in the Soviet as well as the Anglo-American occupation zone. Moreover, Palestine itself is situated not only on the route of British imperial communications, but also on the sea routes to various ports in our own country.

                                                               Solod

Appendix:54 pages.10

注释

10.The following note is appended on the front page:’ To Maksimov, pay attention to point 4 of the letter. Insert into our Palestine file, which should be updated, Samylovskii, 24.1’