Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald today turned a deaf ear in the House of Commons to attacks on the Government’s conduct in its recent publication of the MacMahon correspondence on Arab claims and to demands that the White Paper covering the correspondence be submitted for review to the Privy Council’s Judicial Committee and the League of Nations Mandates Commission.
The attack was led by Tom Williams (Laborite), who asserted that the Anglo-Arab committee formed during the recent Palestine conference to prepare the correspondence for publication had exceeded its terms of reference by expressing opinions on the Balfour Declaration and the nature of British responsibilities in Palestine.
The correspondence comprises exchanges of letters between Sir Henry MacMahon, wartime British High Commissioner in Egypt, and Sherif Hussein of Mecca which form a large part of the Arab claim to independence in the Near and Middle East.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
