I have grieved this week for the babies and children, both Israeli and Palestinian, caught up in the horrors which have engulfed the Middle East.
Israel is a land I’ve visited at least a dozen times and whose people always extended me an extraordinary warmth when I arrived as an outsider not sharing their faith. It’s no exaggeration to say that a trip I took to Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, for my step-son Daniel’s Bar Mitzvah some years back, was one of the most interesting and enjoyable experiences of my life.
Neither will I ever forget my first visit, with Liverpool in 1978.