Fifty years on from 1967, the Middle East remains a cauldron of conflict

MUCH has been said about this week's 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War that reshaped the geo-political contours of the present-day Middle East. Yes, it is certainly appropriate to recall the events of June 5, 1967 when Israel launched pre-emptive attacks on several of its neighbours and won a decisive victory with the capture of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria.

But there has been relatively little attention paid to the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict which has its roots in the World War I carve-up of the Ottoman Empire between the British and the French. In fact, this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which set in motion the events that eventually led to the …