ABSTRACT
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was specifically designed to fit in with the modified territorial Arab desiderata. In a letter to Sykes on 3 May 1916, Clayton confirmed that the arrangement seems the best possible. The very phrase "independent Arab State" was anathema to the latter. As Lloyd George aptly put it, "the first promise of national liberation given by the Allies was the Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 1916. It guaranteed freedom to the Arabs from the shores of the Red Sea to Damascus. If Toynbee's statements with regard to the Sykes-Picot Agreement were the result of his highly selective memory and unmethodical way of thinking, for the Arabs it served as proof of the Allies' iniquitous conduct toward themselves. The notion that they had been deceived had a lasting emotional impact. It became almost an article of faith and turned into a source of perennial grievance. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was the direct consequence of negotiations with the Arab leaders.
