The publisher of a short-lived student magazine in the 1980s is appealing to readers to find the author of an anonymous "exceptional" poem about Israel and Palestine.

Martin Bright, who published a three-issue run of a magazine as a student at Cambridge in the mid 1980s, wants to talk to them about their poem which he described as “an incredibly sensitive take” on the conflict.

The poem, entitled 'Field Navigation Exercise', describes being in the Israeli Defence Force and was likely written by someone who made Aliyah or joined the IDF from the UK, Mr Bright suspects.

One stanza reads: “Our shepherd smiles / as his father smiled at Tommies, / as his grandfather smiled at Turks, / passive, he is saying, ‘Romans / made this road that guides you / through your own country, / when I know better, the way.’”

Mr Bright said: "At this distance, it’s clear to me that it’s an exceptional piece of writing. It’s subject matter is also fascinating - is it written by someone who made Aliyah or a young British Jew who went to fight in the IDF.

"Either way, it is an incredibly sensitive take on the situation."

The magazine was open to submissions from anyone but they tended to come from those in and around Cambridge, and the names of those involved in each issue were all placed at the end “in an act of excruciating trendiness”, according to Mr Bright, who went on to be a journalist and the JC's political editor until 2013.

Those involved included award-winning director Sir Sam Mendes, who was also a student at the time, as well as the late poet Anna Mendelssohn, who wrote under the pen name Grace Lake, contributed some poems.