Hamas was elected in Gaza because the Palestinian Authority was unable to negotiate the removal of a single Israeli checkpoint. Checkpoints which make life impossible for any Palestinian to live even a less than normal life. If anyone disagrees, and I’m sure there are many, all they have to do is read Mona El-Farra, a Palestinian doctor’s dispassionate of what it’s like living with fear and resolve. No access to drinking water, 22 hospitals without electricity, no fuel for generators because the borders in Gaza are sealed, children in intensive care and renal dialysis patients dying. Hundreds of operations postponed, absence of refrigeration, 30,000 children suffering from malnutrition. Yet when an Israeli soldier is kidnapped, while several hundred Palestinian women and children are locked up in Israeli jails, it triggers a response which has shocked civilised people everywhere, including, of course, in Israel. ~Taki