British Mandate of Palestine
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the end of World War I, a lot of territory of the former Ottoman Empire was left on its own. The Allied nations were worried about this. Western countries believed that these countries needed help until they were able to operate on their own. In 1917 Britain had conquered Palestine, also as a result of the Balfour Declaration in which the British declared their support for creating a “national home for the Jewish people”. Consequently, after the Western powers met in Paris, it was decided France would control the mandate for (present-day) Syria and Lebanon, and Britain would have the mandate for (present-day) Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq. From then on, the British army had an increased presence and ruled in Palestine until there was an official civil governing administration placed on July 1, 1920 as a result of the San Remo Conference on April 25, 1920. In this conference the mandate for Palestine and Trans-Jordan was granted to Great Britain by the main Allied Powers. This mandate was eventually formulated by the League of Nations and officially approved by the League Council on July 24, 1922. At this time, the territory of the Palestine mandate consisted of 15,000 square miles with a population of about one million, of which about 80,000 were Jewish inhabitants.