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As World War I unfolded, both Arabs and Jews would play a role in the eventual overthrow of Turkish rule in region. At the war’s outset, the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany and the Axis powers, and the Turkish military governor ordered the deportation of foreign nationals, a large number of whom were Russian Jews. Yet some remained and provided information to the British as part of underground efforts against the Turks. Meanwhile, Arabs, led by the British archeologist and scholar T.E. Lawrence, with crucial backing of Sharif Husayn of Mecca, revolted against the Ottomans. The British made three ambiguous and contradictory promises to Arab, Jewish, and Western partners that left doubt regarding ultimate fate of the region, and Palestine in particular.
In 1915, Sir Henry McMahon, on behalf of the British Government, promised to Sherif Husayn independent Arab control of most of the area. But this Husayn-McMahon Correspondence left the fate of Palestine unclear. One year later, secret negotiations between Sir Mark Sykes of Britain and Georges Picot of France divided the Ottoman territories among the two European powers. Their agreement specified partially British and partially international control of Palestine, and gave modern-day Syria to the French — both promises that arguably conflicted with the previous years’ correspondence. In 1917, the “Balfour Declaration” — a letter from Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a powerful British Zionist — announced Britain’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, adding to the claims and obligations that Britain had engendered.
In 1918, at the close of the war, Britain assumed control and called the area Palestine, as the Romans once did. Two years later, British authority was codified by League of Nations mandate over the areas that include present-day Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and Jordan, as well as neighboring lands.
Timeline: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict ~ 1914 – 1949 | Wide Angle | PBS
Additional info:
Palestine During World War I | Jewish Virtual Library