Clearly Israel has to do something about the hundreds of rockets that have been fired into its territory. I have much more sympathy with Israel's retaliation than with our own (British) involvement in the second Iraq war. How many Iraqi missiles had been fired at Britain or Britain's allies before our government felt justified in invading Iraq? None. The invasion led, directly and indirectly, to the deaths of many tens of thousands of Iraqis. By that standard, what is happening now in Gaza seems like a minor incident.
It is not a minor incident, of course. And the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians is unacceptable, as is the completely indiscriminate firing of missiles into Israel by Hamas.
In the lunchtime news ("The World this Weekend") on Radio 4, a Hamas member of parliament was asked why his organisation continued to fire missiles into Israel.
"Because we want peace" was his response. (I believe those are the words he used - if I have them slightly wrong, I apologise).
Clearly the Hamas policy of firing missiles has failed to bring about the desired end, at least in the short term.
I suspect that Israel's approach may be just as futile in the longer term.
With a huge effort and significant loss of life (mainly Palestinian lives) Israel may bring about some kind of halt to the firing of missiles in the short term, but it is hard to see this as anything other than temporary until both sides acknowledge that long term peace will not be realised through force.
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