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As Arab hostility to the increasing pace of Jewish immigration grew even deeper, so the British reacted by severely limiting the numbers of Jews allowed to enter Palestine. For example, the Jewish Agency asked for 60,000 labour certificates in 1933 and 1934, but the British granted fewer than 18,000. In 1936, 10,695 were requested, but the British approved only 1,800. The British attempted to cap Jewish immigration, imposing an upper level set at 12,000 Jews per year. It was against the backdrop of spiralling violence that a Royal Commission of Inquiry led by the Earl of Peel was dispatched to Palestine on a fact-finding mission in November 1936.

The question of blame remains a very salient issue today, as it deeply impacts on the negotiations over how to resolve the refugee question. The Palestinian negotiators demand the right of return for all refugees as a cornerstone of any peace agreement with Israel, as well as financial compensation for the refugees and their descendants. For its part, Israel rejects the right of return, but privately accepts that some form of compensation may be given, provided that it does not amount to an admission of Israeli complicity in causing the problem, and that someone foots the bill – code for the American taxpayer.

Arafat, blamed by even his European allies for the collapse of the talks, took the only road he knows and understands, a return to tactical armed struggle against Israel – not in the name of Palestinian nationalism, but more by way of saving his own skin. So when President Clinton pointed his finger, he should have done so at himself. As a leading Republican and astute foreign policy observer, Senator John McCain noted in 2001 that he could not help but feel that the President’s foreign policy had laid the seeds of 25 years of war for America to deal with.