Balfour's Shadow

A just solution to end the Palestine-Israel conflict appears to be as distant as ever. This timely book provides a great deal of evidence for why this is the case. On page 135 of his excellent expose of “A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel”, the book’s sub-title, David Cronin hits the proverbial nail on the head: ever since the 1993 Oslo Accords, ‘the West has kept on claiming to support a “peace process” while allowing Israel to act with impunity.’ Britain, as he sets out in relentless detail, has played a key role in this, from the infamous 1917 Balfour Declaration up to the present day. Indeed, as Cronin mentions on the last page, ‘Britain’s top government ministers officially delight in their nation’s support for Zionism and Israel.’ What this signals to the rest of us is that governments pay lip service to human rights and international law. Rogue states like Israel – and my description is no mere rhetoric – may be more overt about their contempt for international laws and conventions but, as the author demonstrates exhaustively, countries in the West which profess to uphold the self-same laws do so for public consumption only; in reality, they are more often than not complicit in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.