The United Kingdom’s recent decision to recognize a Palestinian state marks the latest chapter in a long and deeply consequential relationship with the region. For much of the early 20th century, British policy was instrumental in shaping the political landscape that exists today.
During the First World War, as the Ottoman Empire sided with the Central Powers, Britain moved to secure its strategic interests. Secret negotiations with France, known as the Sykes-Picot agreement, laid plans for dividing influence in the Middle East, including provisions for an international administration in Palestine. Concurrently, British officials corresponded with Arab leaders, offering support for a revolt against Ottoman rule in exchange for the establishment of an independent Arab state.
A pivotal moment came in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration, a public statement expressing British support for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. This commitment was later incorporated into the League of Nations mandate, which granted Britain administrative control over the territory after the war.
Tensions escalated throughout the 1920s and 1930s. A major Arab revolt in 1936 was met with a severe British military response. A subsequent royal commission concluded that partitioning the territory was the only viable solution, a plan that would have involved significant population transfers.
On the eve of the Second World War, a British policy paper proposed the establishment of a single Palestinian state within a decade, while also limiting Jewish immigration. By 1947, exhausted from the war and facing growing violence from both Jewish and Arab militias, Britain announced it would terminate its mandate and refer the problem to the United Nations.
The UN subsequently passed a partition plan, which was accepted by Jewish leaders but rejected by Arab representatives. When British forces withdrew in 1948, the State of Israel declared its independence. The war that followed resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
In the ensuing decades, the United States gradually assumed the role of primary external power in the Middle East, with its alliance with Israel becoming a cornerstone of its foreign policy. The UK’s recent diplomatic move is seen by many as an attempt to re-engage with a conflict whose modern contours it helped to define.
