Mark Sykes - The Balfour Declaration

The Balfour Declaration

Evidence suggests that Sykes had a hand in promoting the Balfour Declaration issued on 2 November 1917. It stated that: "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, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine..."

He would, however, later write to Faisal I of Iraq in which he expressed antisemetic views of the Jewish people: "...this race, despised and weak, is universal and all powerful and cannot be put down."