The british government first had contact with the zionist movement (1) in 1902, but the first murmurings about the idea of the restoration Of the jews to palestine had surfaced some 60 years earlier. Britain’s foreign secretary in 1840, lord palmerston (1784-1865) (born henry Thomas templeton), was determined that muhammad ali, the renegade ottoman governor of egypt, should not succeed (with french Connivance) in making himself master of syria (which then included palestine) as well as egypt, as described elsewhere. (2) palmerston Instead wanted to prop up the sultan of the ottoman empire and end muhammad ali’s quest to extend his personal empire.