The Second World War and After 215
While the Arab States accepted the British government's in-
vitation to a conference to discuss the details of this plan, the
Palestine Arabs, encouraged by the well-timed escape of the Mufti
from France to Egypt,1 reiused to attend the conference unless
they were given a free choice of their representatives, including the
Mufti. The Jewish Agency Executive decided that 'it could not
participate in any discussions based on the Federal Plan, since it
would deprive the Jewish people of its right under the Mandate In
85 per cent, of Western Palestine;2 it did not provide genuine
self-government; and it did not secure freedom of Jewish immi-
gration and settlement'. It would, however, be prepared to parti-
cipate 'if the establishment of a viable Jewish State in an adequate
area of Palestine were the purpose of the discussion'. This 'viable
Jewish State' was later defined as consisting of the whole of
Galilee and the coastal plain (as proposed by the Royal Commis-
sion's Partition Plan or 1937), plus the Southern District with, if
possible, a continuous boundary connecting them, the whole to
£0jnprise,'65 per ceat. of the total area of Palestine. Describing this
as a 'supreme sacrifice', the Zionist official spokesman obligingly
added that 'the Ar?bs would be allotted the central plateau', and
suggested that the Christian Holy Places should be handed over to
an international regime of the Churches.3
While these parleys with Zionists and Arabs were going on, the
British authorities in Palestine had to deal with the rising flood of
unauthorized Jewish immigration by sea from Central and Eastern
Europe, where the desperate Jewish survivors of the Hitler terror
had, since the collapse of Germany, been encouraged by a con-
certed barrage of Zionist propaganda to expect and demand im-
mediate admission to Palestine, and wTere further impelled by
pogroms in Poland and Hungary. Jewish troops in the Allied
armies and other Zionist agents acting under the direction of the
Jewish Agency had skilfully organ^^
Mediterranean coast4 and purchaseH or chartered ships for their on-
ward voyage to Palestine. Most of the liberal funds for these
operations came from Zionist organizations in the U.S.A., which
1 No doubt with the connivance of some French officials.
2 The proposed extent of the Jewish province was unofficially understood to
approximate to that of Plan B of the Palestine Partition Commission (1938),
roughly restricting the Jewish area to the status quo but taking in some small
Arab enclaves.
3 Palestine Post, 25 October 1946.
P