Balfour

A relatively small but thoughtful gathering to mark the 100th anniversary of then-Foreign Minister Balfour's fateful letter.

Speakers included a young Palestinian whose family lives in a Lebanese refugee camp, an elderly Palestinian whose family fled in 1948, a member of Scotland's Jewish community campaigning for a just solution, former Iona community leader Rev MacDonald, MSPs Sandra White and John Finnie (briefly, between Parliamentary business) and others.

A minute's silence, a lament on the pipes.

We have had a dreadful, tangled history since 1917. The miseries of anti-semitism across early-20th century Europe, the geo-politics of WWI, the imperial mindset of an old-Etonian aristocrat, the engrained racism of the times....

Bitter seeds of our present conflicts.