“After the victory of the Allied Powers in World War I—and pursuant to Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations,” wrote Yoram Dinstein, “the former Turkish territories in the Middle East were placed under the Mandates system. Palestine was assigned as a Mandate to Britain.” Per the Narrative, in line with Dinstein's claim, Britain's assumption of a governance role in Palestine came about because of the League's mandate system and through an assignment of Palestine to Britain.

Dinstein's statement conflated two separate issues. One is Britain's right to rule Palestine. The other is the mandate system. The mandate system was not a route to gaining a right to rule territory. It could be used only by a state that held sovereignty over the territory it wanted to place under mandate. Dinstein's wording, however, implied that Britain gained the right to govern through the mandate system.

The League Covenant did, to be sure, suggest that it was desirable that Turkey's Arab provinces, once under new sovereignty, should be administered as mandates rather than as colonies. But the League did not “place” territories under the mandate system. The League had no power to require any state that was holding territory to opt for the mandate system. The League of Nations had no role in determining which states would take on mandates. Nor, as we saw in Chapters 6 and 7, did the Allies have standing to “place” Palestine under Britain's control.

The decision to bring the mandate system into play for Palestine was made by Britain alone. As the San Remo meeting ended, Britain finished a draft of a peace treaty under which it would gain sovereignty from Turkey. The Supreme Council handed the draft to Turkey on May 11, hoping for an immediate signature. Turkey asked for time to respond. Britain was being pressed by the Zionist Organization to “regularize” its tenure in Palestine. From the time the guns of war fell silent, the Zionist Organization lobbied Britain to take practical steps in Palestine that would lead to Jewish statehood. From April 1918, Britain sponsored what was called the Zionist Commission, made up of Zionists from Europe.