What was the British Mandate for Palestine ?
Several European colonial powers split up the Ottoman Empire's regions after its defeat in World War I. In the Levant, Palestine and Jordan were placed under British mandate, but Syria and Lebanon were assigned to the French. In 1917, the British occupied Jerusalem, and in 1922, they formally established Palestine as a mandate.
Palestine was classified as a 'Class A' mandate, indicating that it had the infrastructure and administrative competencies to be regarded as provisionally independent, while it remained under the supervision of the allied forces until it was deemed ready for full independence. This, undoubtedly, would never occur.
The British mandate of Palestine offered a significant opportunity for the Zionist movement to realize its objectives. The British showed significantly greater responsiveness to Zionist objectives than the Ottomans, having already issued the Balfour Declaration, which pledged the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
“His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
Notwithstanding Lord Balfour's grandiloquent words, a colonial empire that perpetrates massacres worldwide is not motivated by benevolence. The British showed no authentic empathy for the historically subjugated Jewish population; instead, they perceived the Zionist movement as a means to advance their interests in the Levant and Suez.
Encouraged by the Balfour Declaration and supportive British officials, the Zionist movement intensified its colonization efforts and created a provisional proto-state within Palestine, known as the Yishuv. The Yishuv's relationship with the British saw fluctuations; yet, the British extended both overt and covert support to the Zionists, enabling their prosperity. Simultaneously, they would severely suppress any Palestinian activity or organization while ignoring Zionist expansion, which ultimately facilitated the invasion and widespread destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages and neighborhoods by the end of the mandate.
The conditions and actions that finally led to the foundation of Israel involved the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the obliteration of their society during the Nakba of 1948, marking the original sin of Israel's birth.