with Southern Palestine, to Britain; but North and Central Palestine, excluding the Haifa Bay, but including Jerusalem, Jaffa and Gaza, were turned into an international zone. Later, in February, 1917, on the request of Sir Mark Sykes, some Zionist leaders, led by the veteran Nachum Sokoloff, met with Georges-Picot and tried to convince him to agree to the inclusion of Palestine in the British sphere.) France having become Britain's great rival in the Middle East, it was imperative that the British contain French influence there and get a strong grip on Palestine and Transjordan, which had become important not just as a base for guarding the Suez Canal, but as an outlet for Iraqi oil, as well.
Nothing ever caused so much bitterness in the Arab world as the Balfour Declaration. The Arabs still see it as a perfidious act of treason, as a flagrant breach of the promises given at the same time to the Arabs. Their profound conviction that Israel is a product of colonialism, a creation of the imperialists, also stems directly from the Balfour Declaration. This is, of course, a misconception. If Britain used Zionism for its colonial interests, she certainly was used by the Zionists for their own ends. The fruits that Britain reaped from this pact were transient; the fruits that Zionism gathered were permanent.
It is with the Balfour Declaration that the relationship between Zionism and the Arabs assumed its final shape. It was a story of the Young Turkish period all over again, but by now clearly defined. The Arabs saw great masses of foreign settlers streaming into the country-t,he third aliyah, bubbling with energy, establishing kibbutzim all over the country. They saw a new colonial regime presided over by a Jewish high commissioner sent from Britain, Sir Herbert Samuel, actively assisting the colonization. For the first time they took up arms as a people, beginning the series of armed clashes of which the Six-Day War in 1967 was but one more round-the seventh or the eighth.