The Palestine police found themselves faced with an impossible task after both Palestinian Arabs and Jews rejected the proposals of the Woodhead Commission which had greatly modified the Peel Commissions Partition Plan. As a consequence of that rejection the British Government unilaterally published the McDonald White in April

The picture shows Jewish women protesting the White Paper outside Government House.

The introduction of the McDonald White paper by the British Government in 1939 after Palestinian Arabs and Jews had rejected the findings of the Woodhead Commission, created additional work for the police and especially the CID. The White Paper provided for the creation of an independent Palestine to be governed by Palestinian Arabs and Jews in proportion to their populations by 1949. To ensure the Arab would still have a majority in 1949, it set a limit of 75,000 Jewish immigrants for the five-year period 1940-1944 (consisting of a regular yearly quota of 10,000 and a flexible supplementary quota of 25,000); after 1944 further immigration of Jews to Palestine would depend on permission of the Arab majority.

All Zionist parties and illegal paramilitary organization opposed what they perceived as a great injustice, but none more viciously than the Irgun.