Balfour, Banksy, Brexit: The Balfour Declaration Centenary in Britain, November 2017

Issued in November 1917 to pledge Britain’s support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” the Balfour Declaration has had dramatic historical repercussions, paving the way for the founding of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian Nakba, and the persistence of bloodshed. Tracing the complex dynamic of postcolonial guilt, self-exculpation, and amnesia that characterized various British responses to the Declaration over the years, the article examines how this dynamic shaped the numerous events held across the United Kingdom in November 2017 to mark the Declaration’s centenary. These commemorative events–allowing different communities to articulate the relationship between Britain’s historical accountability, Israel’s sovereignty, and Palestinians’ grievances–are read in light of two interrelated “post-postimperial” developments preoccupying Britain in 2017: a new conservative backlash against the seeping British willingness to acknowledge Britain’s colonial crimes, and the Brexit crisis, with its complex resonances of imperial legacies.