"...in 1902, the Jews proposed a tempting offer to Sultan Abd Al Hameed in which the rich Jews would promise to pay all the debts of the Ottoman State, to build a squadron to defend it, and to offer a loan of 35 million gold dinars for the Ottoman's run-down public treasury. However, Sultan Abd Al Hameed refused all offers. His reply to the offer, which came via a memorandum sent to Theodor Herzl, was "Advise Doctor Herzl not to take serious steps in this matter because I cannot give up one foot of the land for it is not my personal property; it is the property of my people. My people fought for the sake of this land and their blood was shed. Let the Jews save their millions. If my empire is torn apart one day, the Jews can separate Palestine without any cost. However, as long as I am alive, dissecting my body with a knife is easier for me than to see Palestine separated away from the Islamic State. And this will not be. I cannot agree with dissecting our bodies as long as we are living..." 

The British government issued the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917, in the form of a letter to a British Zionist leader from the foreign secretary Arthur J. Balfour "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 the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."