In 1944

this was the population distribution in Palestine. Blue for Moslems (sic), Red for Jewish, Yellow for Christian and Green for Druze. 

My Dad, who served in the British Army there in 1946-7, used to look back at this map and reflect on the nature of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which has been raging away all my long life. 

I wish I had been able to discuss the collapse of the Ottoman Empire with my grandfather, who was its Prisoner of War until the Armistice of Mudros in 1918. I shall remember him, and his Military Cross, on 30th October.