ABSTRACT
Like a great many British statesmen, Sir Mark Sykes was an ardent advocate of Zionism. Jewish national renaissance and their settlement on the land had a strong appeal for him. At the same time, he championed the Arab cause. An unquenchable optimist, he believed that the glorious Arab past could be rejuvenated and that the Muslim culture of tolerance could triumph over fanaticism and extremism. He saw no inconsistency between his pro-Zionist and pro-Arab policies. Quite the contrary—he believed they were mutually complementary. His idea was that, on the ruins of the Ottoman regime in the Asiatic provinces, an entente between the Arabs, the Zionists, and the Armenians could be built under British and French patronage. This was a grand design that only a creative mind like Sykes’s could have conceived. The political landscape of the Middle East would be completely changed and provide the Allies with a challenging role in the region. High-minded idealism was intertwined with realpolitik.
