It's more about hindrance then help, I'm afraid. The British, after splitting the Palestine Mandate in two parts sought to administrate the smaller part while the larger part was established as the Arab country of Trans-Jordan. The British actively sought to keep Jewish European refugees out of Palestine, interning some of them. In 1947, they British brought a partition plan for the smaller part of Palestine to the United Nations. The plan was accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Arab world (the Arab League and the Arab Higher Committee). World opinion wasn't in Britain's favour. The Jews having survived the horrors of Hitler being stopped, detained and interred by the British just didn't play well in the press. The British mandate on the smaller part of Palestine was to end on the 15th of May 1948. On the 14th of May the British withdrew and in the vacuum of their withdrawal, Israel declared it's independence in the territory denoted by the United Nation's partition plan. This started the Arab-Israeli war as Egypt, Iraq, Tran-Jordan, Syria and Lebanon declared war. About a year later a cease-fire was signed with borders denoted by a line drawn on the map in green. (Which is why that border is still called the green-line today.)