“The delegation have no desire to cause an injustice to the Jewish community, and I think Islam can look back with justifiable pride on its treatment of this community in the past. No aspiration of the Jewish community which is reasonable can be incompatible with Muslim control of the Holy Land, and it is hoped that the Ottoman Government will easily accommodate the Jewish community in such aspirations of theirs as are reasonable.
“Some responsible propagandists of the Zionist movement, with whom I have had conversations, frankly admit: ‘We do not want political sovereignty there; we want a home; the details can be arranged and discussed.’ I asked them: ‘Do you mean that Great Britain herself should be the sovereign Power there, or should be the mandatory?’ and they said: ‘No, what we want is an ordinary, humanly speaking reasonable guarantee that opportunities of autonomous development would be allowed to us.’ We, ourselves, who have been living in India, are great believers in a sort of Federation of Faiths. I think the Indian nationality, which is being built up to-day, will probably be one of the first examples in the world of a Federation of Faiths, and we cannot rule out the possibility of development in Palestine on the lines of ‘cultural autonomy.’ The Jews are, after all, a very small minority there, and I do not believe for one moment that Jews could be attracted there in such large numbers as the Zionist enthusiasts sometimes think. I would say the same thing of an Armenian State, without desiring to say one word which would be considered offensive to any class of people. Because we, ourselves, have suffered so many humiliations, we do not like ourselves to say anything about other people that they would resent. If the Allied Powers brought all the Armenians together and placed them all in a contiguous position, excluding the present Kurdish community from them, no matter what large slice of land you gave them, I think they would very much like to go back to the old status....
“In the same way I would say of the Jewish community, that they are people who prosper very much in other lands, and although they have a great hankering after their home, and no community is so much bound up with a particular territory as the Jewish community is, still, I must say that we do not fear there will be any great migration of such a character that it will form a majority over the Muslim population. The Jewish community has said: ‘We have no objection to Turkish sovereignty remaining in that part of the world so long as we are allowed to remain and prosper there and develop on our own lines, and have cultural autonomy.’”
M. Mohammed Ali, in his letter to Mr. Lloyd George, dated July 10, 1920, also observed that—
“With regard to Palestine in particular, the delegation desire to state that Article 99, embodying the declaration of the British Government of November 2, 1917, is extremely vague, and it is not clear in what relation the so-called national home for the Jewish people, which is proposed to be established in Palestine, would stand to the State proposed to be established there. The Mussulmans of the world are not ashamed of their dealings with their Jewish neighbours, and can challenge a comparison with others in this respect; and the delegation, in the course of the interview with you, endeavoured to make it clear that there was every likelihood of all reasonable claims of Jews in search of a home being accepted by the Muslim Government of Palestine. But if the very small Jewish minority in Palestine is intended to exercise over the Muslim, who constitute four-fifths of the population, a dominance now, or in the future, when its numbers have swelled after immigration, then the delegation must categorically and emphatically oppose any such designs.”
The telegram in which Tewfik Pasha informed Damad Ferid of the conditions of the treaty, and which the latter communicated to the Press, was printed by the Peyam Sabah, surrounded with black mourning lines. Ali Kemal, though he was a supporter of the Government and could not be accused of anglophobia, concluded his article as follows:
“Better die than live blind, deaf, and lame. We have not given up all hope that the statesmen, who hold the fate of the world in their hands and who have officially proclaimed their determination to act equitably, will not allow this country, which has undergone the direst misfortunes for years and has lost its most sacred rights, to suffer a still more heinous injustice.”
All the Constantinople newspapers, dealing at full length with the conditions, unanimously declared that the treaty was unacceptable. The Alemdar, another pro-English newspaper, said:
“If the treaty is not altered it will be difficult to find a man willing to sign it.”