But I have a caution. Even if the day comes when the governments of the major powers are prepared to confront Zionism it could not be taken for granted that Israel’s leaders would say: “Okay. We’ll do what you want.”

My reason for saying that is a statement Prime Minister Golda Meir made to me in one of my interviews with her for the BBC’s Panorama programme in 1972. At a point I said to her, “Prime Minister, I want to be sure I understand what you have just said… You did mean that in a doomsday situation Israel would be prepared to take the region and the world down with it?”

Without a pause for reflection Golda replied: “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

That interview was broadcast on BBC 1 at eight o’clock on a Monday evening. An hour later The Times of London, then a seriously good newspaper, changed its lead editorial to quote what Golda said to me. It then added its own opinion – “We had better believe her.”

I did then and I still do.

Alan Hart, author of Zion