The Balfour Declaration

In 1917 the commander of the British forces in the Middle East General Allenby succeeded in retaking Jerusalem from the Turks. In the resulting Balfour Declaration, (a letter from British foreign secretary A J Balfour to Lord Rothschild, the chairman of the British Zionist Federation) Britain pledged itself to use her best endeavors to facilitate in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people.
In 1922 the United Nations unanimously confirmed the Balfour Declaration as a mandate and Great Britain was temporarily entrusted with administrating Palestine on behalf of its Arab and Jewish inhabitants. The Declaration would help form the basis for the foundation of Israel in 1948.