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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 Nations in 1947 - has so far brought into being neither two states nor a solution to this conflict. In this compelling and meticulous account, Gardner Thompson offers an evidence-based corrective review of Britain´s role in the turbulent history of Palestine before World War Two. This is essential reading for the pursuit of Arab-Israeli reconciliation today.

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