During an earlier Gaza war, I spoke to families who had fled the fighting but whose place of refuge – a UN school – had been hit by white phosphorus. We stood around and looked at what remained of one of the shells… the bits were still smoking and would burst into flames if you nudged them with your foot. A middle-aged man in a rumpled suit was furious, and not just with the Israelis. ‘You’re to blame for this,’ he said, wagging his finger, his voice getting louder. He meant the British: ‘You and your Balfour Declaration.’

The declaration was made in a letter written in 1917 by Arthur Balfour, then foreign secretary, who promised British support for the establishment of a ‘national home’ for the Jewish people in Palestine. Conversations with Palestinians today have a way of ending up with

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