worst atrocity in British Mandate Palestine, the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in July 1946. The Irgun Tzva’i Le’umi, an underground Jewish organisation opposed to the British presence in the region, had planted a massive bomb in the basement of the hotel, which doubled as the headquarters of the British colonial government in Palestine. Ninety-one people were killed and 46 injured, most senior government officials. It was an attack from which, some claim, the British will to govern the region never fully recovered and yet it remains, essentially, a footnote in the story of Britain’s tortuous retreat from Empire.

Israel has gone way way ahead of the “worst” atrocity since 1946

Peter Kosminsky on The Promise, his drama about Palestine