Yishuv - During The British Mandate

During The British Mandate

World War I ended, along with the Ottoman Empire. Britain gained control of Palestine through the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which partitioned Ottoman Syria into French ruled Syria and Lebanon and British controlled Palestine and Transjordan. There was a hope that British control would allow the creation of a Jewish national homeland as promised in the Balfour Declaration. The British Mandate was formalized in 1922 based on the Balfour Declaration. The British were supposed to help the Jews build a national home and promote the creation of self-governing institutions. The mandate provided for an agency in which the Jews could represent Jewish interests and promote Jewish immigration. It was called the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and was only created ten years later, serving as the de facto government of the Yishuv.

Along with a Jewish agency there was to be a general self-governing institution created in Palestine including Jews and Arabs. The Yishuv feared such an institution due to the Arab majority, but none was created in the end due to the Arabs' refusal to cooperate with the Jews or British. The optimism that existed in the beginning of the British mandate soon diminished due to continued hardships in the Yishuv. Most of the European funds that supported the Jewish settlements before World War I ended. The Arabs instigated riots against the Jews due to their opposition to the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate. The British limited immigration through yearly quotas; only those who received "certificates" could make Aliyah.