Following the publication of the Balfour Declaration the British had dispatched Commander David George Hogarth to see Hussein in January 1918 bearing the message that the "political and economic freedom" of the Palestinian population was not in question. Hogarth reported that Hussein "would not accept an independent Jewish State in Palestine, nor was I instructed to warn him that such a state was contemplated by Great Britain". According to Isaiah Friedman, Hussein was not perturbed by the Balfour Declaration and on 23 March 1918, in "Al Qibla", the daily newspaper of Mecca, attested that Palestine was "a sacred and beloved homeland of its original sons", the Jews; "the return of these exiles to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually an experimental school for their brethren." He called on the Arab population in Palestine to welcome the Jews as brethren and cooperate with them for the common welfare. Whereas Kedourie (as well as Friedman) have argued that Hussein accepted the Balfour Declaration, Charles D.Smith has argued that both Friedman and Kedourie misrepresent documents and violate scholarly standards in order to reach their conclusions. while Schneer says that historians have spilled oceans of ink tracing the initial reactions of Hussein and his sons to the Balfour Declaration without settling the debate, noting that Hussein considered Palestine to be Arab land.