The Struggle for Independence 189

White Paper Svas not in accordance with the interpretation
which, in agreement with the Mandatory Power and the Council,
the Commission had placed upon the Palestine Mandate*. It also
considered whether the Mandate 'might not perhaps be open to a
new interpretation which .. . would be sufficiently flexible for the
policy of the White Paper not to appear at variance with it*; and
the majority of four to three declared that 'they did not feel able
to state that the policy of the White Paper was in conformity with
the Mandate, any contrary conclusion appearing to them to be
ruled out by the very terms of the Mandate and by the fundamental
intentions of its authors'. The minority, consisting of the repre-
sentatives of Britain, France, and Portugal, considered that "exist-
ing circumstances would justify the policy of the White Paper,
provided the Council did not oppose it5. The outbreak of the
Second World War prevented the Council from discussing the
White Paper, which thus remained de facto in force. Nevertheless
the Zionists have continued to defend their opposition to it by the
pretence that the disapproval of a majority of one of the Mandates
Commission automatically rendered the White Paper illegal; this,
although the Commission had no veto over the proposals of a
Mandatory, but only the power to advise the League Council. The
Mandatory could hardly afford to mark time without a policy till
the end of the War. Indeed, as Dr. James Parkes, who cannot be
accused of lacking sympathy for Zionism, has commented, the
White Paper was not, "as it might appear to be, a violent reaction
against the policies of previous British governments. ... From the
moment when the Balfour Declaration stated that the rights of the
existing population would be safeguarded, it was evident that no
final solution was possible while these rights, as the population
itself understood them, were ignored. The Arabs of Palestine
stated their objection to the Declaration quite openly on the first
occasion on which they were able. They have never wavered from
that position. .. . This being so, then the only possible sequence of
events was one in which the original encouragement given to the
Jews was steadily whittled down in the face of Arab intransigence.5 *

In Syria, after the suppression of the Rebellion of 1925/26, the
French civilian High Commissioner made a genuine attempt to
1 op. cit., 63,