MacMichael, Sir Harold

(1882–1969)

   High commissioner in Palestine, 1938–44. MacMichael came to Palestine as high commissioner after a distinguished career in British colonial administration, particularly in the Sudan. He incurred the fierce hostility of the yishuv through his strict enforcement of the White Paper of 1939, which severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine at a time when millions of Jews were seeking to escape from Hitler. The most dramatic incidents of his administration were those connected with Jewish refugee ships, of which the Patria and the Struma are the best-known. In 1944 the dissident Zionist terrorist group, the Stern Gang (Lehi), made an unsuccessful attempt to kill MacMichael, who left Palestine shortly afterwards.