Page "Israeli Declaration of Independence" Paragraph 4

With the end of World War I, Britain was given a mandate over the area known as Palestine, which it had conquered from the Ottomans.

In 1936 the Peel Commission suggested partitioning Mandate Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, though it was rejected as unworkable by the government and was at least partially to blame for the 1936 – 39 Arab revolt.