Legacy of Empire: Britain's Support of Zionism and the Creation of Israel

The Arab-Israeli conflict rages on, with no peace process and no sign of resolution. Much ignorance remains of the origins of the modern state of Israel, and in particular, Britain's key role in its creation.

In the early twentieth century, Britain took two momentous decisions: first, to issue the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which pledged to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a 'national home for the Jewish people'; the second, to retain it as the cornerstone of British rule in Palestine after the First World War. Indeed, over the next two decades, British imperial decision-makers would oversee the colonisation of Arab Palestine by Jewish immigrants, disregarding contemporary evidence and warnings that Britain would acquire 'another Ireland'. In the end, this inexorably led to bitter conflict. In response to full-scale revolt by the Arabs, Britain proposed the partition of an ungovernable land: a 'two-state solution' which - though endorsed by the United...