Introduction


Following confirmation, the early spring of 1943, the massacre of
European Jews by Nazi Germany, the Jewish leader Chaim Weizmann
wrote to the British Prime Minister, Winston S. Churchill, imploring
a gesture from the British government in favor of abandoning
its policy of limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine, planned
the White Paper of 1939, as Palestine seemed the only
countries where Jews could find a safe haven. Weizmann's request
Churchill clearly called out because he refused to War Cabinet that the
1939 White Paper does not dictate the policy implemented by the government,
thus opposing its predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, who had
During previously before being replaced. But Weizmann convinced
Churchill not the role of Palestine as the only refuge for Jews
persecuted. In its request sent 18 April 1943 the Secretary of State for
Dominion Affairs, Lord Cranborne, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies,
Oliver Stanley to meet Weizmann (a copy is also
sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anthony Eden), he asked
Stanley to consider at the same time the use of Italian colonies
Eritrea and Tripolitania, respectively conquered in 1941 and early 1943 by the forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth
as "Jewish national home" additional one. Based on archives
UK and U.S., this article examines the debate both within
British and American governments and between these two entities
this controversial issue which, until now, largely ignored
by historians of the Middle East and North Africa.