Editorial Comment:
The centenary of the Balfour Declaration, which falls tomorrow, marks the day a British foreign secretary set in train events that would lead to the creation of the state of Israel 31 years later. In a letter to Walter Rothschild, Arthur Balfour wrote that: “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.”
This momentous pledge will be marked with a dinner in London tomorrow hosted by Theresa May and attended by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. However, another invitee will be absent: Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has declined to attend in what is being seen by the Jewish community as a deliberate snub. Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, will represent the Opposition.
Mr Corbyn’s decision invites renewed speculation about his attitude towards the Jewish state.
This dinner is not about endorsing the current government in Tel Aviv or committing to any particular political future or disavowing the Palestinian claim to a separate state of their own.
It is about celebrating the existence of Israel, a homeland for a persecuted people who faced extermination in Europe just 70 years ago.
What is it that Mr Corbyn finds so difficult to acknowledge here? He has well attested links to Palestinian groups that deny Israel’s right to exist. At a parliamentary meeting he once described militant anti-israeli organisations Hamas and Hizbollah as “friends”. Furthermore, he has taken a somewhat blasé attitude to allegations of anti-semitism inside the Labour Party, including Ken Livingstone’s bizarre comments about the pro-zionism of Hitler. He subscribes to a view, widely held on Labour’s hard Left, that Israel’s chief ally is America and so, by extension, the country must be bad. They consider it an imperialist power that bears comparison with authoritarian regimes, rather than the only democracy in the Middle East.
Mr Corbyn, if only half-heartedly, denies that he is anti-israel or anti-semitic. Yet here was an opportunity to show that at the very least he recognises Israel’s right to exist. He aspires to be the prime minister of a country that not only upholds Israel’s legitimacy but was instrumental in bringing it about. The Balfour dinner offered a chance to put some of these questions to rest. His failure to attend merely raises more.