section_path: Modern Middle East/Ottoman defeat and partition (1918–1922)
section_name: Ottoman defeat and partition (1918–1922)
paragraph_text: Ottoman defeat and partition (1918–1922)
  
  When the Ottoman Empire surrendered to the Allies in 1918, the Arab patriots did not get what they had expected. Islamic activists of more recent times have described it as an Anglo-French betrayal. The governments of the European Entente had concluded a secret treaty before the armistice, the Sykes–Picot Agreement, partitioning the Middle East amongst themselves. The British had in 1917, endorsed the Balfour Declaration promising the international Zionist movement their support in re-creating the historic Jewish homeland in Palestine.
  
  After the Ottomans withdrew, Arab leaders proclaimed an independent state in Damascus, but were swiftly defeated by the forces of Great Britain and France who soon after establishing control, re-arranged the Middle East to suit themselves.
  
  Syria became a French protectorate as a League of Nations mandate. The Christian coastal areas were split off to become Lebanon, another French protectorate. Iraq and Palestine became British mandated territories. Iraq became the " Kingdom of Iraq " and one of Sharif Hussein's sons, Faisal, was installed as the King of Iraq. Iraq incorporated large populations of Kurds, Assyrians and Turkmens, many of whom had been promised independent states of their own.
  
  Britain was granted a Mandate for Palestine on 25 April 1920 at the San Remo Conference, and, on 24 July 1922, this mandate was approved by the League of Nations. Palestine became the " British Mandate of Palestine " and was placed under direct British administration. The Jewish population of Palestine, consisting overwhelmingly of recent migrants from Europe, numbered less than 8 percent in 1918. Under the British mandate, Zionist settlers were granted wide rein to immigrate initially, buy land from absentee landlords, set up a local government and later establish the nucleus of a state all under the protection of the British Army, which brutally suppressed multiple Palestinian Arab revolts in the years that followed, including in 1936. The Territory East of the Jordan River and west of Iraq was also declared a British Mandate when the Council of the League of Nations passed the British written Transjordan Memorandum on 16 September 1922. Most of the Arabian peninsula, including the Holy cities of Mecca and Medina, though not incorporated into either a British or French colonial mandate, fell under the control of another British ally, Ibn Saud, who in 1932, founded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.