Mr Ezra Golombok’s article [Issue 228] criticising Will Peakin’s reportage on the humanitarian disaster in Gaza proves the adage that there is no truth in Israel or Palestine, only versions of it.

Mr Golombok’s version, given his official role as Director of the Israel Information Office in Scotland, proves my own view that the State of Israel is not a partner in peace but the primary barrier to it. Israel must be saved from itself, because the Israeli leadership and their propagandists are patently unable to save themselves.

Nobody doubts that there are Israeli citizens who have suffered, but an endless circle of “us-too” self-justification is not going to lead to peace.

It was interesting that in his first paragraph Mr Golombok admitted that there was “no suggestion of inaccuracy” in the article, or any testimony to challenge. It will not have been for want of trying, doubtless having bullied your newspaper into a right of reply when the article was fair, balanced and professional. Unable to dispute the testimony, the spokesman for the Israeli government still went on to pollute the pages of your newspaper with two pages of propaganda designed primarily to muddy the water, confuse the issues and undermine the integrity of anyone mentioned in the piece. Really, does the fact that the UN representative got the amount of houses damaged by the Israel assault on Gaza wrong negate his criticism?

Only in Israel.

I carry no torch for any side in the Middle East (and there are more than two) and do not believe any government actually speaks for the long-term interests of their people.

I abhor all violence, and favour the two-state solution and will sit down with anyone to achieve it. I have been to Gaza, the West Bank and Israel as well as the neighbouring countries and know the Middle East well. I am in no doubt the State of Israel has a case to answer, and should answer in the international courts and be subject to international sanctions until they do. I have seen first hand how it has systematically undermined any chance of a viable Palestinian state, deliberately, and very effectively, abused the human rights of the Palestinians and provoked precisely the violence Mr Golombok claims as justification for the neverending cycle of oppression, abuse, justification then more oppression and abuse that can only end badly.

Mr Golombok’s valiant efforts to distract with minutiae should be resisted, because it is imperative the international community brings this apartheid regime to heel, for all our sakes. The logical, and I fear inevitable, destination of the current trajectory is a conflagration which will dwarf all previous Arab-Israeli conflicts. This matters, not just on a human level, though that is grounds enough, but on a geopolitical one too.

The radicalisation of militant Islamic youth in Yemen, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere is aided and abetted by the actions of the State of Israel in Palestine, and the complicit indolence of the West (and Middle Eastern regimes) in allowing it. Each time you go through airport security, each time you see a CCTV camera limiting our rights, allegedly to guard against terrorism, think of Israel. The oil price, already high, would be nothing compared to where it might be should a wide-scale Middle Eastern war break out. It has happened before and has never been closer. The international community, such as it is, is not short of laws and standards, and in Iraq and Afghanistan enthusiasm to intervene. When it comes to Israel it has been precious chary of actually applying them.

So having said all that, I now fully expect a response from Mr Golombok or someone like him, doubtless accusing me of being partisan, a friend of terrorism, even anti-semitic.

Nothing could be further from the truth, but the truth is the first casualty of war. Perhaps psychologists can glean more than I can of Mr Golombok’s rather proud comparison, in paragraph eight of his piece, of the State of Israel to a dangerous animal. Not words I would have used, but I could not agree more. Perhaps we have more common ground than we think.