Broken promises and failures Britain's role in the Middle East

The former British prime minister Harold Macmillan once said that there was no problem in the Middle East because a problem has a solution.

- Daniel Boffey

Keir Starmer is the latest incumbent in No 10 to try to prove Macmillan wrong through a plan that has been described by Downing Street as a "pathway to peace". The record of Britain's interventions do not give many reasons for hope.

The 1917 Balfour declaration The commitment drafted by the British foreign secretary Sir Arthur James Balfour to "view with favour the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people" was integrated into Britain's UN mandate over Palestine between 1923 and 1948 and paved the way for the birth of Israel. The declaration contained a key qualification: nothing should be done to prejudice the "civil and religious rights" of Palestine's "existing non-Jewish communities". For many Palestinians, this part of the declaration is yet to be made good.