Naval postgraduate school monterey, california thesis approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

B. BACKGROUND 
His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine 
of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best 
endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object…
201
 
201
Leonard Stein, 
The Balfour Declaration,
(London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1961), 681. 

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68
With the end of World War I came responsibility for territories to be divided 
amongst the victors. Britain recognized the strategic importance of Palestine from a 
military standpoint and made every effort to ensure that it would not fall into French 
hands after the war.
202
The Tripartite Sykes-Picot Agreement for the Partition of the 
Ottoman Empire, negotiated secretly by the Secretary of the British War Cabinet Sir 
Mark Sykes and the French representative Georges Picot in 1916, established the 
framework for French and British annexation of “Asiatic portions of the Ottoman 
Empire” after Allied victory.
203
It provided for French control of Lebanon and Syria, 
independence for Saudi Arabia and Yemen, British control of Iraq and Trans-Jordan, and 
international administration of Palestine pending future discussions with the Sherif of 
Mecca, Russia, and other allies.
204
The British formally occupied Palestine on December 
11, 1917 when General Allenby entered Jerusalem, promising to respect and protect all 
citizens (regardless of religion) under the newly established military government. World 
War I had left Palestine in ruins. Nearly a quarter of the population had died in battle.
Both the Arab and Jewish populations were starving, plague was rampant, and the 
economy was near collapse.
205
On November 2, 1917 the Balfour Declaration officially established a Jewish 
homeland in Palestine, in recognition of the support Allied forces had received from the 
Jewish diaspora during one of their lowest points in World War I.206 After the U.S. 
Congress voted to declare war against Germany on April 6, 1917 that was partially 
202
Leonard Stein, 
The Balfour Declaration,
(London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1961), 115. 
203
The agreement was in contradiction to official British negotiations with Arab officials in Cairo, 
which were based on the promise of independence for previously Ottoman controlled territory. Robert 
John and Sami Hadawi, 
The Palestine Diary, 1914-1945,
3ed. (New York: New World Press, 1970), 53. 
204
Stein, 
The Balfour Declaration
, 264-267. John and Hadawi, 
The Palestine Diary, 1914-1945
, 55-
58.
Although the secret negotiation of this agreement was rebuked by British statesmen, Arabs and other 
national governments, it still served as the foundation for British occupation and recognition of Palestine as 
the Jewish national homeland in the Balfour Declaration. 
205
Bernard Wasserstein, 
The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and The Arab-Jewish 
Conflict 1917-1929,
(London: Royal Historical Society, 1978), 1-3. 
206
John and Hadawi, 69, 78, 79. In 1916, the British had over 300,000 troops immobilized from 
disease, the military draft was implemented for the first time in British history, and nearly 1.5 million tons 
of shipping was sunk by German submarines. France was teetering on the brink of collapse; rebellions 
broke out in Ireland, Italy’s political future was bleak, and Russia was on the verge of revolution. At this 
time, American Jews used their political clout to influence the U.S. decision to enter the war through the 
promise of establishing a Palestine as a national homeland after the war. 

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influenced by American Jewish lobbying, the British government issued a Statement of 
War Aims in the Near East, which listed five points in support of Jewish national 
objectives that would serve as the basis of the Balfour Declaration.
207