The first time I heard the word Palestine, I was half-asleep on a Sunday morning. My grandfather was watching the BBC. I may have been nine or ten. Every few days something blew up in the Middle East. I remember Yasser Arafat’s headscarf, the way he kissed a cheek when he met someone. I remembered Ariel Sharon only because his name is synonymous with a brand of detergent. That’s how politics entered my childhood through half-seen news images and strange associations.