“His Majesty’s Government have …been faced with an irreconcilable conflict of principles. There are in Palestine about 1,200,000 Arabs and 600,000 Jews. For the Jews the essential point of principle is the creation of sovereign Jewish State. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine.”
We have, therefore, reached the conclusion that the only course now open to us is to submit the problem to the Judgment of the United Nations.
Source: The Political History of Palestine under British Administration Published (by His Britannic Majesty’s Government presented in July, 1947, to the United nations Special Committee on Palestine) Published at Jerusalem 1947 (p54-55)