On February 14, 1947, Britain decided to cede control of the Palestine Mandate to the United Nations. This decision came after the failure of the London Conference of 1946–1947. The decision was announced to the British House of Commons four days later by Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin. The British had made a variety of conflicting promises over the fate of the region: the Husayn-McMahon Correspondence, which supported Arab independence; the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which supported expanding British and French control; and the Balfour Declaration, which supported the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people. In the years leading up to World War II, tensions had often flared between Jews and Arabs in the region, especially as many Jews began to flee persecution in Europe. In 1939, following extended revolts by the Arabs, Britain published the White Paper to announce the creation of an independent Arab state within 10 years. It revealed that only 75,000 Jews would be allowed into the region for the next five years, with severe restrictions being made on land sales; Jewish immigration would be entirely cut off after that. As the Holocaust continued in Europe, the immigration restrictions remained in effect, but some Jews were able to secretly enter the Palestine Mandate.After World War II, it became difficult for Britain to justify keeping its forces in the mandate due to economic and political strain. As such, they decided to return it to the United Nations. Later on, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine proposed partitioning the territory into both a Jewish state and an Arab state. The return of the Palestine Mandate to the United Nations is what paved the way for the creation of Israel.