And you're right that the colonial powers were very cynical in the post WW1 era. The book 'A Line In The Sand' is currently on sale on Kindle for 99p and tells how there were at least 3 different schemes being pursued for what to do about carving up the Middle East, all of which were deeply cynical.
There's even a view that the British Government were supportive of the Balfour Declaration because they saw it as a way to potentially rid themselves of these recently arrived Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. If you think the language of people like Farage and papers like the Mail is bad now, you should have seen it in the early 20th Century when talking about those Jewish migrants.
Incidentally, the site where the CFA now is, which was Clayton Aniline, played a big role in the Balfour Declaration as the owner of CA introduced Arthur Balfour to the Zionist Movement's leader Chaim Weizmann.