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The
basic reason was that control over immigration to Palestine between
the world wars was held by the mandatory power, the British, who
cited the formal criterion of "economic absorptive
capacity" to regulate Jewish entry in accordance with their own
imperial and strategic interests. In essence, there were three legal
ways to immigrate to Palestine before the war:
-
"Capitalist" visas were issued to immigrants who possessed
capital of at least 1,000 Palestine pounds. To put this in
perspective, the annual wage of a policeman in 1933 was less than 50
pounds;
-
Halutzim, young Zionist pioneers who had undergone a period of
vocational –mostly agricultural – training abroad could enter
the country as "laborers." The exact number of
certificates granted to laborers was determined by the Palestine
Government in six-month "schedules" reflecting the
economic situation at the time, especially the level of
unemployment;
-
"Dependents" – direct relatives of Palestine residents.
After
1937, in the wake of the Royal Commission report, Jewish immigration
into Palestine was subjected to an overt political threshold.
The
other side of the coin, however, was that the Zionist establishment,
which was embodied in the Executive of the Jewish Agency for
Palestine, constantly disputed the actual size of the
"schedules" allocated by the Palestine Government but
never challenged the system in principle. Unrestricted and unimpeded
immigration would have clashed with the Agency's prevailing
conception of Zionist fulfillment as a slow, organic process, in the
course of which the economic, social, and cultural interests of the
collective Zionist enterprise in Palestine should take precedence
over the needs of the Jewish individual. |
