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Palestine White Papers were British government statements of policy presented to parliament; they played an important part in the history of Mandatory Palestine. Six such documents were issued between the years 1922 and 1939.
The Passfield White Paper was issued by the colonial secretary, Lord Passfield (Sidney Webb), in the wake of the riots of 1929. The causes of the riots and the situation in Palestine had been investigated by the Shaw Commission (see Palestine, Inquiry Commissions) and an inquiry into land settlement, immigration, and development had been carried out by Sir John Hope Simpson, who was pessimistic as to the possibilities of further Jewish immigration and settlement without displacing Arabs (see Palestine, Inquiry Commissions). A central theme in the White Paper, which was issued simultaneously with the Hope Simpson report, was the argument that under the terms of the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration, "A double undertaking is involved, to the Jewish people on the one hand and to the non-Jewish population on the other." It rejected the view that the passages regarding the Jewish National Home were the principal feature of the Mandate.
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