Among those who made the Pesach exodus from London was Jewish Book Week director Geraldine D'Amico. But while others reclined in Herzliya or Eilat, she followed a different itinerary, visiting the West Bank as guest of the British Council-backed Palestine Festival of Literature.

Judging from her Book Week blog, the experience was chastening. The impact of Israel's separation barrier near Bethlehem was "ugly, nasty and cruel", she wrote. She didn't meet a single person who believed in the two-state solution, and as for attitudes to Israel, one Palestinian fellow-participant explained the Seder to be a time when Israelis celebrate the killing of Egyptian babies.