Many people have from time to time urged me to write my memoirs, but I only decided to do so when I came back to Norway at Christmas, 1967, and found that Norwegian public opinion there regarded the Palestine problem almost entirely from the Israeli point of view. As this was a problem with which I had been living for many years, and one which, as I had become very much aware, had at least two sides to it, I felt in conscience bound to make my own experience the basis for as calm and objective a presentation of the whole Middle East situation as I could. For those from outside who, like myself, have become involved in this situation, the aim must always be to try to reduce the burden of suffering and injustice for all people in that area, Arabs and Israelis alike.Bull, p. xv.
