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290017227
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Memorandum from James MacDonald to President Harry S. Truman
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290017227
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document
title
Memorandum from James MacDonald to President Harry S. Truman
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President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)
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290017227
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25
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1946-07-25
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7
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1946
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displaced persons
July 25, 1946
MEMORANDUM FOR PRESIDENT TRUMAN FROM JAMES G. MACDONALD,
FORMERLY MEMBER OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY
T he program reported in today's papers for the cantonization of Palestine
is, in my considered opinion, a repudiation of the President's program and is
wholly inconsistent with the recommendations of the Anglo-American Committee
which the Cabinet Committee was appointed to implement. In effect, the present
proposals would establish in Palestine a Jewish ghetto wholly inacceptable to
Jews throughout the world and to the conscience of mankind.
I. It is a repudiation of the President's program for the immediate ad-
mission of 100,000 displaced Jews because:
A. Their admission is made contingent upon Arab acceptance of the new
scheme, an acceptance which I am almost certain will not be given.
B
. It is contingent upon Jewish acquiescence which can never be
given because acceptance would involve the surrender of all Jewish rights
under the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate and of all their historic
hopes.
II. It is a direct repudiation of the President's insistence that the ad-
mission of 100,000 should not be made contingent upon agreement on long-term
involved and controversial political policies. This is the more amazing because
on at least three separate occasions the President has solemnly and publicly de-
clared that the admission of the 100,000 must be the first and primary objective.
III. It ignores the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry's Report, which
rejected partition, as impractical and undesirable. The present proposed mutila-
tion of Palestine has all of the disadvantages of partition and none of its ad-
vantages. It makes no provision for self government and leaves the country in-
definitely under an even more rigid and absolute control by the British.
IV. It is a repudiation of Britain's obligations under the Balfour Declara-
tion, the Mandate and the Anglo-American Treaty of 1924.
V. It is the culmination of Britain's persistent policy of a quarter of a
century of whittling down the territory of the Jewish National Home. Incredible
though it may seem, the present proposed settlement would leave to the Jewish
people but one-thirtieth of the original Palestine envisioned under the Balfour
Declaration.
VI. The Jewish area now suggested of 1500 square miles is already so thickly
settled that it offers no opportunity for the admission of any substantial number
of Jewish immigrants and hence would be a death blow to all hopes for the Jewish
National Home.
VII. All this is in violent opposition to the position twice taken by the
Congress of the United States, by the Democratic Party, and by your distinguished
predecessor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.