Chaim Weizmann was preferable for Israel over his White Paper. He also agreed that Israel should annexe the Negev desert, where no one was living. However, when Lord Moyne, the British Governor of Palestine, met Churchill, he was surprised that he had changed his views in two years. Eleven days later Moyne was assassinated for his trenchant views on immigration in November 1944; the immigration question was put on hold. In February 1943, the British government also rejected a plan to pay $3.5 million and just $50 per head to allow 70,000, mostly Romanian, Jews to be protected and evacuated that Weizmann
President of Israel and journalist; and Chaim Herzog was a military leader, attorney, and diplomat. The first Israeli presidents were born in the former Russian Empire, which was true of much of the leadership in the early days of the state. The first native-born president, as well as the first with a Sephardi background, was Yitzhak Navon. The first president with a Western European background was Chaim Herzog, who originally came from Belfast, United Kingdom. The first president with a Mizrahi background was Moshe Katsav, who was born in Iran. All Israeli presidents from Yitzhak Ben-Zvi to Ezer Weizman were members of, or