[6] In a discussion after the meeting with President of the Local Government Board Herbert Samuel, Lloyd George assured him that "he was very keen to see a Jewish state established in Palestine.

I also said it would be a great advantage if the remainder of Syria were annexed by France, as it would be far better for the state to have a European power as neighbour than the Turk[4][8] The same evening, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith announced that the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire had become a war aim in a speech for the Lord Mayor's Banquet at the Mansion House, "It is the Ottoman Government, and not we who have rung the death knell of Ottoman dominion not only in Europe but in Asia.

[13] Lloyd George, who was later to be Prime Minister himself at the time of the Balfour Declaration, was noted by Asquith to be the only Cabinet member strongly in favour of the proposal.

He noted that it would likely be too early for an independent Jewish state, and that incorporation into the British Empire would be the solution "which would be much the most welcome to the leaders and supporters of the Zionist movement throughout the world".

Till full scope is granted, as Macaulay said in the House of Commons, "let us not presume to say that there is no genius among the countrymen of Isaiah, no heroism among the descendants of the Maccabees.

It reads almost like a new edition of Tancred brought up to date...it is a curious illustration of Dizzy's [Disraeli's] favourite maxim that 'race is everything' to find this almost lyrical outburst proceeding from the well ordered and methodical brain of H.S."...

[20]and in March about the final version: "I think I have already referred to Herbert Samuel's dithyrambic memorandum, urging that in carving up the Turks' Asiatic dominions we should take Palestine, into which the scattered Jews would in time swarm back from all quarters of the globe, and in due course obtain Home Rule.

Curiously enough, the only other partisan of this proposal is Lloyd George, who I need not say, does not care a damn for the Jews or their past or their future, but thinks it will be an outrage to let the Holy Places pass into the possession or the protection of 'agnostic, atheistic France'"[21] Writing earlier on 5 February, Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading noted that "[Lloyd-George was] inclined to the sympathetic side – your proposal appeals to the poetic and imaginative as well as to the romantic and religious qualities of his mind".