April 5, 1974
Richard Crossman, a British career politician known for being a convert to Zionism, dies at 66 at his home in England after suffering from liver cancer.
Initially in his professional engagement with the Palestine issue, he sympathized with the Arabs, but he became a strong supporter of Zionism in 1946. From then on, he staunchly advocated for Zionist ideals in the British Parliament. Among the many appointments Crossman held during his time as a public servant in Britain, he was on the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine in 1946.
The committee was formed when the United States and Britain were at odds about whether Palestine should be a destination for Jews who survived the Holocaust. The release of the Harrison Report in the United States in August 1945 led President Harry S. Truman to call for Jewish refugees in displaced persons camps to be allowed into Palestine. Great Britain, however, balked and instead recommended setting up the special joint commission.
The Anglo-American Committee recommended that 100,000 Jews be allowed into Palestine despite the restrictions on immigration that were instituted under the 1939 White Paper. Truman endorsed the idea, but Ernest Bevin, the British foreign minister, said Truman’s support was only because the “U.S. did not want too many (Jews) in New York!” Britain, ignoring the recommendations of the report, opened Palestine to only 1,500 Jewish immigrants per month. Diplomatic relations between London and Washington were subsequently strained.
Through Crossman’s experiences on the commission, he came into contact with many Zionist leaders, including Chaim Weizmann, who helped change his views toward the development of a Jewish state in Palestine. Crossman later engaged in a public and heated feud with Bevin over this issue. In his 1960 book A Nation Reborn, Crossman states, “What stuck in my gullet was the idea that British troops should be used to hold the Arabs down while the Jews were given time to create an artificial Jewish majority. Sure enough, I did at last come to the conclusion that the injustice done to the Arabs by dividing the country and permitting the Jews to achieve a majority in their portion would be less than the injustice done to the Jews by implementing the 1939 White Paper. But this was a complicated, terribly difficult decision to reach.”
