Summary
De Vries’s term for the arena of relations in London between the Palestine Diamond Manufacturers’ Association, the Ministry of Economic Warfare and the Diamond Trading Company on one hand, and the pressures exerted by the COFDI-Belgian lobby on the other, on which the decisions on the material lifeline of Palestine’s diamond industry depended (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.139).
Details
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Two vectors were set on a path to clash: Palestine’s industry taking off and breaking the agreed-upon (but largely undefined) limitations on its expansion, and the Belgian diamond circles’ quest to see Antwerp recover the world supremacy it had enjoyed before the German occupation (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.139).
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Palestine received supplies for its perceived roles as an alternative to Antwerp, a barrier against diamonds reaching the Germans, a buyer of De Beers reserves, and a promising dollar-earner for the British; from 1943 the Belgian Congo’s minerals, such as uranium for the Manhattan Project, made good relations with the Belgian government-in-exile increasingly important to the Allies, deepening the British dilemma (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.139-141).
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In August 1943 the syndicate suddenly decreased the small-stone supply and imposed a switch from eight-cuts and Sand to Melees, a change De Vries ascribes mainly to Belgian influence using the Congo’s continuous supply of rough stones to De Beers as the precondition of Belgian postwar recovery through Sand cutting (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.144-146).
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In winter 1944 the politics of supply produced a breakdown of trust between the MEW and the PDMA over suspected smuggling, illegal accumulation and outside-syndicate buying, and supplies were preconditioned on immaculate stock accounting (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.148-150).
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De Vries argues supplies and their politics were also at the heart of the cutters’ unrest: the autumn 1943 stone change led the manufacturers to turn back on the June 1943 collective agreement, and strike action followed (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.180, p.188).