While the war was raging in the outside world, the Zionists prepared for an even bigger fight for the survival of their homeland. Weizmann issued a statement on 11 February 1917, and on the following day, they received news of the Kerensky take over in Petrograd. Tsarist Russia had been very anti-Semitic but incongruously this made the British government even more determined to help the Jews. Nahum Sokolow acted as Weizmann's eyes and ears in Paris on a diplomatic mission; an Entente under the Ottoman Empire was unsettling. The Triple Entente of Arab-Armenian-Zionist was fantastic to Weizmann leaving him cold and unenthusiastic. Nonetheless the delegation left for Paris on 31 March 1917. One purpose of the Alliance was to strengthen the hand of Zionism in USA. Weizmann's relations with Balfour were intellectual and academic. He was genuinely overjoyed to convince the former Prime Minister in April 1917. Just after the US President had left, the following morning, Lloyd George invited Weizmann to breakfast at which he promised Jewish support for Britain as the Jews "might be able to render more assistance than the Arabs." They discussed "International Control" the Russian Revolution and US involvement in the future of the Palestine Problem. The complexity of Arab "desiderata" – "facilities of colonization, communal autonomy, rights of language and establishment of a Jewish chartered company". This was followed by a meeting with Carson and the Conservatives (18 Apr) and another at Downing Street on 20 April. With the help of Philip Kerr the issue was moved up "the Agenda" to War Cabinet as a matter of urgency. On 16 May 1917 the President of the Board of Deputies David Lindo Alexander QC co-signed a statement in the Times attacking Zionism and asserting that the Jewish Community in Britain was opposed to it. At the next meeting of the Board, on 15 June 1917, a motion of censure was proposed against the President, who said he would treat the motion as one of no confidence. When it was passed, he resigned. Although subsequent analysis has shown that the success of the motion possibly had more to do with a feeling on the part of Deputies that Lindo Alexander had failed to consult them than with a massive conversion on their part to the Zionist cause, nevertheless it had great significance outside the community. Within days of the resolution the Foreign Office sent a note to Lord Rothschild and to Weizmann asking them to submit their proposals for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.