ABSTRACT
The British promise would prove to be empty, however, as the 1917 Balfour Declaration stated Britain’s support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. This came as a harsh blow to the Arabs. T.E. Lawrence (known more popularly as Lawrence of Arabia), a long-time British ally of the Arabs, continued to lobby for Arab independence in the lands promised by the McMahonHussein correspondence. However, part of these lands were governed by the French after World War I due to the establishment by the League of Nations of administrative authorities called mandates, which granted power to France and Britain. The French controlled what is now Syria and Lebanon, while the British had jurisdiction over present-day Israel, Jordan, and northern Iraq. Britain divided its mandate into Transjordan and Palestine in 1921, and a United Nations
resolution in 1947 proposed a further division of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Thus, the dream of a united Arab state was thwarted.
