British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 177

CHAPTER VII.

limits of economic capacity. Before each periodic decision is taken, Jewish and Arab representatives will be consulted. (3) After the period of five years no further Jewish immigration will be permitted unless the Arabs of Palestine are prepared to acquiesce in it.

(4) His Majesty's Government are determined to check illegal immigration, and further preventive measures are being adopted. The numbers of any Jewish illegal immigrants who, despite these measures, may succeed in coming into the country and cannot be deported will be deducted from the yearly quotas.

'!'his policy has been administered from the 1st April, 1939, to the present time, the several immigration Ordinances being consolidated in the Immigration Ordinance No. 5 of 1941 *.

29. It has already been pointed out that war changed the administrative channels, but it did more than that because considerations of the security of His Majesty's Forces and the Allies' lines of communications became of first importance. Practically the whole of Europe outside Russia was either occupied by the enemy or under his domination. Serious strategic threats towards the whole of the Middle East were developed by way of North Africa and South-Eastern Europe. A further consequence of the war was that the distinction in the White Paper between immigrants in annual quotas of 10,000 and immigrants who might be admitted as refugees in the special supplement of 25,000 disappeared. Allocations of immigration authorities by categories and to specific countries became less and less possible. A brief summary of the several decisions taken to fulfil the requirements of the White Paper in conditions of war is given in the succeeding paragraphs.

30. Soon after the outbreak of war His Majesty's Government decided, on grounds of policy, not to facilitate in any way immigration of Jewish or other refugees from Germany or territory occupied by Germany. This was interpreted to mean that no facilities for Palestine were to be granted to any person who left Germany or German occupied territory after the date of the outbreak of war. This rule, however, was relaxed in the case of holders of immigration certificates who had succeeded in leaving Germany at the beginning of the war. Officers of the Department of Migration and the Frontier Control Service were sent to Italy and other countries in South-Eastern Europe to examine all such holders of certificates and to make arrangements for their onward journey to Palestine. All neutral countries were warned 'that persons arriving from Germany (including German occupied territory) would not be granted facilities for Palestine without individual examination.
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* Laws of 1941, Vol. I, page 6.

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