There is, almost certainly, no rational military solution to the problems posed to Israel by the rockets being fired from Gaza against the inhabitants of Sderot. Israelis and Palestinians need peace - a peace based on ending the occupation, the 1967 borders (with some minor land swaps as agreeable), sharing Jerusalem, the coexistence and mutual recognition of two states - and this is what the Israeli government should be pursuing with all vigour. Blockading Gaza is morally indefensible and it won't work.
That said, the treatment of this question by liberal editorialists and would-be spokespeople for international law and humanitarian conscience is quite exceptionally one-sided. This is from an editorial in yesterday's Independent:
While Israel is reluctant to admit the effects of its blockade, it makes no bones about what the siege is intended to achieve: it is designed to pressure Hamas into putting a stop to the rocket attacks being launched against Israel from within Palestinian territory. Israel has a right to attempt to stop the attacks on its civilian population, but not by any means. International law specifically forbids collective punishment of occupied populations.International law also specifically forbids lobbing missiles on to civilian population centres, but the writer omits to consider this, just as he or she, conceding that Israel has the right to try to prevent attacks against its civilians, says nothing about the duty of Hamas to put a stop to these attacks. After all, what are they other than forms of collective punishment, in which those living in Sderot are held answerable for the acts of the Israeli state? You seldom if ever encounter the term 'collective punishment' in this regional context except as something practised by Israel - as if terrorist attacks on civilians were anything else. The one-sidedness of the piece is in no way atypical. It is pervasive.
John Ging of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency recognizes that the people of Sderot are entitled to protection:
But he said the majority of Gaza people did not support the attacks and were powerless to prevent them. "We cannot measure punitive sanctions, collective in their nature, by the number of rockets fired. One's actions have to be measured against the rule of law[,] the legal standards that are the fabric of civilised society," said Mr Ging.Once again, it's astute footwork. The people of Sderot are entitled to protection, but before they are, they're entitled not to be attacked. And the rule of law applies not only to the Israeli government but also to Hamas; the majority in Gaza may not support the rocket attacks, but Hamas could certainly put a stop to them. However, within this discourse Israel is the only responsible agent: it must not blockade Gaza; it must respect the rule of law; it must protect its people.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU External Relations Commissioner:
I have made clear that I am against this collective punishment of the people of Gaza...Good for you, Benita. Any other collective punishment you are against? Sderot, maybe? Oh that... well:
Neither the blockade nor the recent military strikes are able to prevent the rocket attacks. Only a credible political agreement this year, as foreseen at Annapolis, can turn Palestinians away from violence.Your blockades and military strikes are chosen; their violence just sort of bubbles up.
So it goes on. The subtext is that this is a story in which neither law nor humanity are really the key to understanding or practical concern, because it's a story that has only one side. Israel is the wrongdoer state, subject to no enmity, no provocation, no threat.