When the Palestinians elected Hamas as their government in 2006 the US, UK and Israel took the view that they elected the wrong party. Gaza has been punished by various forms of financial and military blockade ever since.

The Palestinians did not have much before the blockade started - they have a lot less now. The Gaza Strip is about 25 miles long and 6 miles wide with a population of one and a half million souls. It was invaded by Israel in 1967 and has remained under effective Israeli control ever since, despite UN resolutions demanding their withdrawal.

Some would argue that Israel gave up control in 1994, however they hung on to airspace control, maritime access, population registry, imports, exports, entry of foreigners and (most important of all) taxation!  Some freedom for the Palestinians!

Yesterday Israel launched massive air strikes against the population of Gaza and have so far killed over 250 people - but the Palestinians fought back. They killed one Israeli! In this David versus Goliath battle, David is clearly a Palestinian - seems appropriate since they too are a Semitic people.

I watched the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor,  on Channel 4 News last night. The interview is fascinating, watch carefully how Palmor conflates killing and maiming with the effects of the Palestinian rocket attacks (which have rarely killed any Israelis) to produce the following sentence:  "(they have been) killing, maiming and terrorising hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens."

Palmor stated explicitly that the "main strategic objective (of the bombardment) is to improve living conditions in Southern Israel ... this will automatically improve the living conditions of the Palestinians"!

So there you have it then, killing hundreds of people is simply a quality of life thing.