I AM a recovering Christian Zionist. There was a time when I believed that anyone who raised their hand against the state of Israel raised their hand against God and deserved not just his judgement, but mine as well.

I believed this because I became a Christian in a church where such nonsense passed unquestioned.

And why would we question it? It was always stated as fact, never opinion, and none of us cared enough to bother reading further than the prescribed texts on the matter, with their handy built-in theologies, revised histories and filters through which to view the news.

Later, I grew up a little. I moved churches. I watched the news. I read some books. I decided that, even though Israel were God's people, the State of Israel sometimes got things wrong.

They were obviously still righteous and their enemies were obviously still in league with Satan, but my views, I thought, had achieved balance.

The questions raised by the New Testament and its repeated assertions that God's people are the church and that they were marked not by race but by following Christ troubled me, yes. But I just chalked them up to God's ineffable plan.

Today, I chalk them up to God's Holy Spirit, gently prompting me to think harder, question more, seek truth that centres on Jesus. Today I have not only read books and news reports, I have been to Israel and to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

I have spoken to Rabbis and Jewish Settlers and I have been into the homes and offices of Palestinians working for peace and for liberation.

I have read the history of Israel and Palestine and the conclusion I have reached is that 'balance' is not enough. We need to pick a side.

Israel is a state that imprisons children in military jails. It is a state that traps and bombs civilian populations. It is a state that has roads that only one race can drive on and checkpoints that another race may not walk through unmolested.

Israel is a state that breaks international law regularly as it builds houses on occupied land for one race and breaks the law of compassion by regularly bulldozing the homes of another race.

Israel is a state where giant walls (not fences) separate Arabs from their own land and where 18-year-old Jewish soldiers have the power to decide whether hundreds of middle-aged Palestinian labourers get to work on time or at all - assuming an Israeli Jew has signed papers allowing them to work.

Israel is the state that last week sought tenders for building 1,000 new homes for Jews on occupied land. Israel is where soldiers will not fire on Jews who throw rocks at them, but regularly fire on non-Jews.

It is also a state where Palestinians fire rockets at civilians and suicide bombers kill Jewish Israelis with satanic glee. But this is not balance. There is no balance in the numbers of dead on either side. There is no balance in the daily fear, humiliation and poverty. There is no balance in power.

And there is no moral balance. Apologists like I once was resent comparisons with Apartheid, but then, they resent a lot of things. Would we call for 'balance' in an approach to Apartheid today? Or would we pick sides?

We might reject the violent methods of some (as did Nelson Mandela). But that does not mean that their cause is unjust. Christians of conscience cannot side with the State of Israel. Not because the majority of Christians in the Holy Land are Palestinian, but because we serve a God of justice. And justice has long been neglected in Israel.