Abstract: When the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I, the Allied victors divided many of its former territories among themselves as mandates to be administered under the supervision of the League of Nations. Britain accepted the mandate for Palestine with the duty of preparing it for independence but also fostering the development of a Jewish national home without discriminating against residents of other ethnicities or religions. Although it had been the premier world power in 1914, Britain's grip on its global empire weakened during the interwar years. Its responsibility under the mandate became complicated as Jewish immigration into Palestine rose during the 1920s and then exploded after the Nazis came to power in Germany. Increasingly displaced physically and economically by the Jewish immigrants, the Arabs in Palestine expressed their frustration through violent revolts aimed at the Jewish communities and the British administration. By 1936, the unrest in Palestine had reached a critical point. Over the next three years, the British sought a way out of Palestine, first through an unpopular partition solution and then in the White Paper of 1939. The failures in Palestine resulted from British miscalculation and the global problems of the 1930s.