This is not a question addressed to any particular person, but to a country, a country I have visited three times in my life, a country I felt I had an affinity with, a love for.
But I can’t go back, even though they are now on the travel green list.
And I am sad, and disappointed, and angry.
Not for me, because a visit from me matters not a jot, but for the country, and for those that are suffering.
Israel should be a beacon for what can be achieved, but it has become yet another example of historic echoes.
I suppose that, considering it’s rebirth, driven by guilt and terrorism, it wasn’t the most auspicious of starts, with the forceful evictions of Palestinians to make way for new settlers.
Evictions that have never stopped, no matter what the western powers who have ensured the continuation of Israel may say in their ineffectual remonstrations.
My father was born in Palestine, in 1923, and on that basis I guess I would have a stronger claim to live there than many of the current Israelis who see the continued and continuous suffering and subjugation of the Palestinian people as acceptable.
Yad Vashem, the holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem stands as a powerful reminder of what man is capable of inflicting on man.
It should also stand as an even more powerful reminder that displacement, segregation and attempted destruction of a people can never be justified.
The Jewish people have, over the centuries, been accused of many things, and have a tortured history of being the scapegoats for many who needed to blame, obscure and deflect attention.
But that can never be a justification to treat another people with inhumanity.
There is so much that has been achieved in Israel, so much to be admired and applauded, with so much potential for the future.
But, when you drive a people into a corner, behind walls and wire, and continue to mistreat and displace the 20% of your population that remain, you cannot be surprised that there will be a response.
Violence can never be justified, indiscriminate violence even more so, by either side.
And disproportionate slaughter and destruction by a superior force can never have the honour of justice on its side.
I am a Jew, but I can never be a Zionist.
Because everyone has the right to live in safety, and not be forever waiting for the next assault, the next removal.
We are swift to condemn China and Russia for their assaults on ethnic minorities.
It is time the western powers put the concern for votes to one side and condemned again.
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