July 12th 1920 Sir Arthur Balfour

July 12^th 1920 The Palestine Mandate

Sir Arthur Balfour

So far as the Arabs are a great, interesting, and attractive race I hope they will remember that . . . the great powers, and among all the great powers most especially Great Britain, has freed them, the Arab race, from the tyranny of their brutal conqueror, who had kept them under his heel for these many centuries. I hope they will remember that it is we who have established the independent Arab sovereignty of the Hedjaz. I hope they will remember that it is we who desire in Mesopotamia (e.g. Iraq) to prepare the way for the future of a self governing, autonomous Arab State. And I hope that, remembering all that, they will not grudge that small notch for it is no more geographically, whatever it may be historically that small notch in what are now Arab territories being given to the people who for all these hundreds of years have been separated from it.

Source: Palestine Royal (Peel) Commission Report Cmd. 5479 Chapter II pg 27)** (have in PDF)