They were forced out by Irgun, Lehi, and the Haganah. Basically, the Brits said "Fuck it, we've had enough," and turned the problem over to the U.N.
I'm well aware of the history.
Point of fact: Great Britain abstained from the vote on UN Resolution 181. Think about that....if England really wanted Israel to exist, why wouldn't it have voted "For"?
As for the Suez War, Nasser was already doing whatever he could to frustrate Britain in the Middle East. He was particularly pissed off following he defense pact Britain had signed with his "enemy" Iraq (Nasser saw Iraq as standing in the way of Egypt dominating the Arab world). He also convinced the Jordanians to turn training and control of the Jordanian army from the Brits to Egypt, which drove then Prime Minister Anthony Eden bat shit crazy. He came to hate Nasser with a passion. Closing the Suez Canal was the last straw and letting Nasser get away with it was seen as akin to the Munich Agreement in the Conservative Party. The Labour Party, on the other had, was very much against attacking Nasser. The whole affair was very controversial from the get-go in England.
France is a different story (not sure why you brought it up), but France was closely allied with Israel back then. Israel bought French weaponry and the two nations worked together on their nuclear programs. Egypt was also seen as supporting the Algerian separatist movement. It's tough to realize now but the French really saw Algeria as part of France.
An abstention is very open to interpretation. Look at Obama's abstention on what should be the least controversial complaint about Israel, stop building settlements and walking that genocidy tightrope.
England didn't want Israel to exist, they didn't not want Israel to exist. Their abstention showed their position on the matter. Their most important priority was leaving(something we should learn from, after centuries of war there's a time to quit) and they left a pretty fair plan. The British were the ones who put the structures in place that required countries to divide on religion, look at India and while I'm not sure how much the British split up the Israelis and Palestineans not well versed on that, but different country's is a product of the British colonial system. Anyhow before WWII, Zionism was just a movement where Jews were mass migrating to Palestine. The Jews were going to have a majority or large minority there no matter what, the Holocaust and reaction to it is what got the international community to act and formally create a Jewish state rather than there just being an area in the Middle East that happened to have a lot of Jews.
Anyhow the idea of Israel being a refuge for European Jews isn't a myth, some Holocaust survivors did go to Palestine, but it's close. Most Jews didn't just run to Israel after the Holocaust the ones who were there were mostly there for decades. Immigration did increase I assume but the modern Israeli's were already a set up group dating back to the 19th century. That group used the Holocaust as a way to get across the finish line of their goal. But the Jews in Palestine were a pre existing constituency, and to paint a picture like the Holocaust happened and the UK didn't want to authorize a Jewish state for Holocaust survivors is very misleading. The Israeli and Palestinean situation was pre existing and even without WWII and without a Holocaust, the Jewish, Palestinean tension over land was there and the UK would have been tired anyway of dealing with it.
Palestine was a mandate and it was already assumed the Brits would leave Palestine along in the near future, which would have to involve some agreement between Jews and Palestineans. The Brits didn't look for Palestine, they weren't looking for a war with Turkey but shit happens and they ended up with half the Middle East in their lap. In the spirit of "self determination", these areas were turned into mandates where they'd leave after the colonies were self governing. The Europeans got to benefit from the spoils of the war for a few decades without either the PR nightmare or logistical hassal of occupying a colony. Keeping their hands off was very much at the heart of their intentions from the beginning. This isn't India which was a formal British colony where the Brits where pushed away kicking and screaming. From the moment Palestine was in British hands the outcome you've described is the one they were going for. Nothing for or against Israel.
Also the Brits were dealing with the whole Ireland situation and I think the last thing on earth they wanted to do was get involved in another conflict between local religious groups.
The UK, France and Israel would have succeeded if Dwight Eisenhower didn't threaten them assuming the Soviets didn't intervene. The invasion was going very smoothly and Eisenhower probably threatened to do very violent things to get them to stop on a moments notice. Ah a time when we had a President who actually wanted stability.
The French were run by a right wing lunatic who wanted to be Napoleon. Dude was a nobody who only got to succeed because he was the biggest military person who escaped France and didn't cooperate with the Nazi's. Every wonder why we got dragged into the Vietnam War? French were brutal af in Vietnam, the Vietmanese Communists revolted and in the name of wonderful containement we stepped in and lost thousands of American lives to a Commi who'd lived in the US who admired the founding fathers and actually wanted to be our friend if we didn't insist on destroying his country in the name of a depraved lunatic(and then containment).
Don't get me started on the Algeria thing. France spends a century bitching about their low birth rate(France bitching about their birth rate was the main issue that led to the Treaty of Versailles and WWII, needed to keep Germany down really hard because France had such a smaller birthrate) which was caused by going to war every generation for four hundred fucking years. Do you know France is supposed to have a population about the size of ours if they didn't just keep killing each generation? Anyhow now they got Algeria which is part of France, traditional part of the Roman Empire, fight to keep it and while that doesn't work out, lots of Algerians bought into that, Algeria has a fucking huge population, get 10% to 20% to buy in and that's a lot. Then after the war the Algerians who were supposedly French immigrate and fix France's problem for them, and instead of the French saying thank you, the French go all out Nazi and start crying about how they are losing their identity when they are still 90%ish ethnically homogeneous.
