The White Paper of 1939, also known as the MacDonald White Paper after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary who presided over it, was a policy paper issued by the British government under Neville Chamberlain in which the idea of partitioning the Mandate for Palestine, as recommended in the Peel Commission Report of 1937, was abandoned in favour of creating an independent Palestine governed by Palestinian Arabs and Jews in proportion to their numbers in the population by 1939 (section I). A limit of 75,000 Jewish immigrants was set for the five-year period 1940-1944, consisting of a regular yearly quota of 10,000, and a supplementary quota of 25,000, spread out over the same period, to cover refugee emergencies. After this cut-off date, further immigration would depend on the permission of the Arab majority (section II). Restrictions were also placed on the rights of Jews to buy land from Arabs (section III).

The White Paper was published as Cmd 6019. It was approved by the House of Commons on 23 May 1939 by 268 votes to 179.

A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and may be a consultation as to the details of new legislation. The publishing of a white paper signifies a clear intention on the part of a government to pass new law. White Papers are a "... tool of participatory democracy ... not [an] unalterable policy commitment". "White Papers have tried to perform the dual role of presenting firm government policies while at the same time inviting opinions upon them."

In Canada, a white paper "is considered to be a policy document, approved by Cabinet, tabled in the House of Commons and made available to the general public". The "provision of policy information through the use of white and green papers can help to create an awareness of policy issues among parliamentarians and the public and to encourage an exchange of information and analysis. They can also serve as educational techniques".

"White Papers are used as a means of presenting government policy preferences prior to the introduction of legislation"; as such, the "publication of a White Paper serves to test the climate of public opinion regarding a controversial policy issue and enables the government to gauge its probable impact".

Walid Khalidi (Arabic: وليد خالدي‎, born 1925 in Jerusalem) is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is General Secretary and co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an independent research and publishing center focusing on the Palestine problem and the Arab–Israeli conflict.

Khalidi's first teaching post was at Oxford, a position he resigned in 1956 in protest at the British invasion of Suez. He was Professor of Political Studies at the American University of Beirut until 1982 and thereafter a research fellow at the Harvard Center for International Affairs. He has also taught at Princeton University.

Khalidi was co-founder of the Royal Scientific Society of Amman. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Khalidi graduated with a B.A. from the University of London in 1945, then studied at the University of Oxford, gaining an M.Litt. in 1951. Under his guidance the Institute of Palestine Studies produced a long series of monographs in English and Arabic and several important translations of Hebrew texts into Arabic: 'The History of the Haganah', David Ben-Gurion and Shertok's diaries—texts that still await translation into English. He has also produced ground-breaking work on the fall of Haifa and Deir Yassin. His best known works are Before their diaspora, a photographic essay on Palestinian society prior to 1948 and All that remains, the encyclopedic collection of village histories which he edited.

Guido Westerwelle (German pronunciation: [ˈɡiːdo ˈvɛstɐˌvɛlə]; born December 27, 1961) is a German liberal politician, who, since 28 October 2009, has been serving as the Foreign Minister in the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel, and who was Vice Chancellor of Germany from 2009 to 2011. He is the first openly gay person to hold either of those positions. He has been the chairman of the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP) since May 2001, but stepped down in 2011. A lawyer by profession, he has been a member of the Bundestag since 1996.

Guido Westerwelle was born in Bad Honnef in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He graduated from Ernst Moritz Arndt Gymnasium in 1980 after academic struggles resulted in his departure from previous institutions where he was considered an average student at best, but substandard otherwise. He studied law at the University of Bonn from 1980 to 1987. Following the First and Second State Law Examinations in 1987 and 1991 respectively, he began practicing as an attorney in Bonn in 1991. In 1994, he earned a doctoral degree in law from FernUniversität Hagen.

Cecile Pearl Witherington Cornioley CBE (24 June 1914 - 24 February 2008) was a World War II SOE agent born in Paris to British parents.

Pearl Witherington was born and raised in France but was a British subject. She was employed at the British embassy in Paris and engaged to Henri Cornioley (1910–1999) when the Germans invaded in May 1940. She escaped from occupied France with her mother and three sisters in December 1940 and eventually arrived in London where she found work with the Air Ministry. Determined to fight back against the German occupation of France, she joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) on June 8, 1943. In training she emerged as the "best shot" the service had ever seen.

Given the code name "Marie", Witherington was dropped by parachute into occupied France on 22 September 1943, where she joined Maurice Southgate, leader of the Stationer Network. Over the next eight months, she worked as Southgate's courier.

After the Gestapo arrested Southgate in May 1944 who was subsequently deported to Buchenwald, she became leader of the new Wrestler Network, under a new code-name "Pauline", in the Valencay–Issoudun–Châteauroux triangle. She reorganised the network with the help of her fiancé, Henri Cornioley, and it fielded over 1,500 members of the Maquis; they played an important role fighting the German Army during the D-Day landings. They were so effective that the Nazi regime put a ƒ1,000,000 bounty on her head. The Germans even ordered 2,000 men to attack her force with artillery in a 14 hour long battle. Cornioley states: