During World War I, British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour submitted a letter of intent supporting the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This came to be known as the Balfour Declaration. The British government hoped that the formal declaration would encourage support for the Allies.
In 1918, the war ended and the Allies were victorious. The 400-year Ottoman Empire rule came to a close and Great Britain took control of what became known as Palestine (modern-day Israel, Palestine and Jordan).
In 1922, the Balfour Declaration and the British mandate over Palestine were approved by the League of Nations.
By 1947, the British mandate in Palestine was becoming untenable. On November 29, the same year, the matter came up in the United Nations General Assembly and was voted in favour of the partition.
In conflict
The Jewish Agency, which was the recognised representative of the Jewish community, accepted the plan whereas the Arab League and Arab Higher Committee of Palestine rejected it. On December 1, 1947, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike.The Mandate collapsed into civil war as the British evacuated Palestine and refused to implement the partition resolution. On May 14, 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel”.
