The Middle East has been a zone of conflict throughout my lifetime. Is there any chance whatsoever that this can change? Can they do what we did in Europe and transform an area where war and conflicts were regular (and even expected every generation) into a zone of peace, stability and relative prosperity?

That is the key question facing the Middle East, with knock-on effects for the rest of the world. The cost of this conflict over six decades has been so enormous that, if you added it up and shared the sum among all Israelis and Palestinians, everyone of them would be half way to being a millionaire... And that's just the material costs, taking no account of human suffering.

All elected representatives involved in debating foreign policy and voting on trade agreements with Israel or sums of money for Palestine have a duty to understand the issues involved as best they can.

That is what I hope to do over the next few days as part of a Labour delegation visiting Israel and Palestine. We go at a time of acute despair, but conscious of the imperative need to at last find a settlement that all sides can live with.