somewhat problematic conclusion was to divide the country into a Jewish and an Arab state, in other words to implement partition. The 1939 White Paper, in a further attempt to solve this source of conflict, proposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state in treaty relations with Britain. It proposed that 75,000 Jewish immigrants be admitted in the first five years after which further immigration would be dependant on the Arabs. The incensed Zionists claimed that this was a breach of faith on behalf of the British but with the war clouds looming discussions were temporarily suspended. During the War the Arabs remained essentially neutral, having little to gain by assisting either side, while the Jews pressed for permission to raise forces to assist in the battle against the Nazis. This culminated in 1944 in the Jewish Brigade.
The War provided the Jews with a golden opportunity to smuggle arms to Palestine and these were stored in underground armouries.
In the months after the war the Squadron found itself in the midst of a rapidly worsening political situation in Palestine. At this time Britain ruled Palestine by League of Nations Mandate. The source of the trouble was one of conflicting interests between the nationalistic Palestine Arabs on the one hand who wanted to be free of the Mandate and any other external influence and the Zionists on the other who wanted a Jewish state and national home in Palestine.
The origins of the dispute arose out of the first World War when British statesmen, through pressure of War, made a number of contradictory commitments to both sides through the Mandate and also the Balfour Declaration in 1917. The Royal Commission’s Report in 1937 reached the conclusion that the various promises made to either side were irreconcilable and the Mandate in its existing form unworkable. Its
