Blair- Still Got The Old Magic.

It's nice to see that Tony Blair is having as much success in his role as Middle East peace envoy as he had as Prime Minister. In fairness the Israeli Palestinian situation has always been volatile even before his Tonyness came along saying "look guys, how come you don't have the Christmas spirit over here?".

The Independent reports that:

Three Israelis killed as Hamas launches revenge attacks

Which isn't really true seeing as it was Hamas's rocket attacks that precipitated the current situation. Perhaps Hamas were taking preemptive revenge.

I'm not sure whether Israel's actions are correct or appropriate. Allowing rocket attacks to continue is clearly not an option but the Prime Minister is corrupt and demonstrably incompetent so who knows whether this is the best response or whether it is being done with one eye on the upcoming Israeli elections? It would be nice if there were a means of targeting those who fire the rockets without endangering civilians but without effective intelligence gathering that is difficult to do.

However the way the UK media have been reporting the situation is misleading in that it present every Israeli action as occurring in a vacuum with no context given for why they are doing it whereas Hamas's behaviour is presented as being a reaction to what Israel does rather than the conscious choices of sentient individuals.

As with Hezbollah's unprovoked attack on Israel two years ago, territory that Israel had completely withdrawn from is being used as a platform to attack and murder Israelis. This clearly undermines the case for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem so you would have imagined that opponents of Israel's presence in the West Bank would have been the loudest in denouncing Hamas and Hezbollah but instead there is a long pause followed by a barrage of propaganda and conspiracy theories to excuse them.