Some perspective

"The extent to which [the Balfour Declaration of Nov 1917] outraged Arab opinion was hardly anticipated in London, where the principal motive, apart from a certain Biblical romanticism, was plainly strategic".
"A declaration of support for international Zionism would rally American Jewish opinion to the British cause, and perhaps prop up Kerensky's falling regime in Russia. But chiefly it would establish a new pro-British state, guaranteeing the safety of the Suez Canal from a north-eastern attack. It would provide an unbroken chain of British command from Egypt to the Persian Gulf (through which area an oil pipeline from Iraq to Haifa was built in 1934)." (G.D. Clayton, 'Britain and the Eastern Question',1971, p.220.)