Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the Independent

Her piece today is well-thought!

Some years ago, I used to live next door to Colonel Charles Leverett, who was an officer in, I believe, the Royal Engineers. One of his jobs had been to enforce the mandate in Palestine before and during WW2. He told me this because I told him that I shared a birthday with Menachim Begin. His feelings towards Mr. Begin were fairly personal as Charles had been in the King David Hotel when it was blown up by the Irgun.

But Charles told me about Palestine before WW2, where as he said Jew and Arab lived reasonably happily together. I remember he told me that the only way to tell them apart was by their surname. He felt that the Zionists had ruined a lot of this and turned Jew against Arab.

I would have thought that this was just a perhaps slightly biased view of a British Army Officer.

But since then, I've learnt two things.

One is that British Army Officers of the rank of Colonel and above are extremely reliable witnesses with a very strong pacifist streak.

Secondly, the same view of a pre-war Palestine has been put forward by Israeli historians.

Charles may still be alive. You and other journalists would find him a wonderful interviewee.

To me, a man in his late fifties of Jewish-Huguenot ancestry, there will be one of two solutions to the Israel-Palestine problem. Israel will realise that if it embraces the surrounding countries and uses its economic might, technology and contacts, it can create a Middle East without conflict. Or it will be pushed into the sea.