284 • 16 THE CONTEST FOR PALESTINE
restrictions on Jewish immigration. Weizmann was so incensed by this re¬
port that he resigned as leader of the Jewish Agency. Chagrined, the British
government issued a letter explaining away the Passfield White Paper, thus
alienating the Arabs. It taught them that Zionist influence was strong
enough to sway the British government whenever it favored Arab interests.
The letter hardly mollified the Zionists either. This incident shows just how
weak Britain's Palestine policy had become. Indeed, it doomed the man¬
date to failure by exposing evolving conditions that the British could no
longer control.
Jewish Immigration and Arab Resistance
During the 1930s, Jewish-Arab relations worsened. The rise to power
of Hitler and his Nazi Party in Germany put the Jews in that country—
numbering almost one million—in dire peril. Many stayed in Germany
despite discriminatory laws, official harassment, and hooliganism against
Jews inspired by Hitler's inflammatory speeches, but other German Jews
(not to mention Jews from nearby countries such as Poland) began trying
to get out. Even the Nazis tried, for a while anyway, to help them leave. But
which country would take them in? Most European countries were already
crowded and had too few jobs during the worldwide depression. They did
not want to admit many German Jews. Neither did the US, which since
1924 had set strict limits on foreign immigration. This left Palestine. From
1933 on, the trickle of Jewish immigrants into that country turned into a
flood, taxing the limits Britain had set out of concern for Palestine's ab¬
sorptive capacity—and indeed for the extent of Arab tolerance. Naturally,
the Arabs wondered how long it would be before they became the minor¬
ity. They had not brought Hitler to power. Why should their rights be sac¬
rificed for the sins of the Germans?
The Peel Commission and the White Paper
As Arab feelings of anger and impotence mounted, Hajj Amin al-Husayni
took charge of a new Arab Higher Committee that represented nearly all
Palestinian Muslim and Christian factions. The committee called a general
Arab strike in 1936. The strike turned into a large-scale rebellion that al¬
most paralyzed Palestine for several months. Again the British government
sent a commission of inquiry, this one headed by Lord Peel. The Arabs
tried to impress the Peel Commission with their power by boycotting it un¬
til just before it departed in January 1937. Consequently, the Zionists got a
better hearing. The Peel Commission report, issued later that year, recom-
