The roots of today's Middle East conflict are extremely deep and exceedingly tangled and Jill Hamilton has done a wonderful job in unravelling a complicated story. Describing the background to the present conflict - she intertwines the sad story of mistakes and broken promises with the age-old fascination that Jerusalem holds for Jews, Muslims and Christians. New insights are given into the decisions taken by the key men in the British and American governments and the effect on Old Testament beliefs and Nonconformity in their decisions is examined.

Woven into the narrative is the story of David Ben-Gurion and the other soldiers in the Jewish Legion. It follows them from their first tottering steps on the moors of Devon to their quarter-century as members of the secret underground army, the Haganah, to May 1948 when Ben-Gurion read the Declaration of Independence of the new state of Israel.