Mandatory Palestine

Mandatory Palestine was the British-administered territory in the region of Palestine between 1920 and 1948. After British forces drove the Ottomans from the Levant in 1917–1918, the San Remo conference assigned Britain the mandate, and the League of Nations approved the Mandate for Palestine in 1922. Britain governed through a high commissioner seated in Jerusalem, the capital, with the Colonial Office supervising. The mandate covered the former Ottoman territory west of the Jordan, and Transjordan was separated from it in 1921. The mandate incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promised support for a Jewish national home, while also requiring protection of the civil and religious rights of the existing population. Jewish immigration and the growth of Arab and Jewish nationalism produced the 1929 riots and the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939. The United Nations partition plan of 1947 proposed two states, and the mandate ended on 14 May 1948 with the establishment of Israel and the ensuing 1948 war.