Ally against Ally: The Zionist-Genevese Front against British Policy in Palestine, 1929–1931

Abstract: This article examines Jewish and Zionist diplomacy at the League of Nations in response to British attempts to restrict Jewish immigration and land acquisition following the 1929 riots in Palestine. Although they regarded the league with ambivalence, by 1930, the Zionists exerted considerable influence in Geneva. They owed this leverage to the local Zionist bureau, headed by Zionist internationalist Victor Jacobson, and to the personal diplomacy of the president of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann. This influence culminated in an informal Zionist-Genevese front in June 1930, when the league's Permanent Mandates Commission issued a report harshly critical of the British government and its endeavors to modify its Jewish national home policy. The report helped the Zionists in their diplomatic campaign to prevent restrictions on Jewish immigration and land acquisition. Still, it came with a price, straining the Anglo-Zionist alliance enshrined in the Balfour Declaration and the mandate.