McMahon-Hussein Correspondence

The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence is a series of ten letters exchanged between July 1915 and March 1916, during the First World War, between Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, and Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca. In the letters, Britain agreed to recognize Arab independence over a large region claimed by the Sharif, subject to certain exclusions, most notably parts of Syria west of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, in exchange for Hussein leading the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The precise scope of the promised territory, especially whether it included Palestine, became bitterly disputed once Britain's other wartime commitments came to light, through the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement and the 1917 Balfour Declaration. The correspondence has remained a central and contested reference point in the history of Anglo-Arab relations and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.