Mutual fear condemns Gaza to Groundhog Day

The basic ingredients for a solution are in place. But Israel and Hamas must come to the table without preconditions

The problem with the now famous tweet by the Liberal Democrat MP David Ward — “The big question is, if I lived in Gaza would I fire a rocket? Probably yes” — is not that it is somehow outrageous, but that it lacks the very imagination that it lays claim to. He seems to think that a rocketeer is someone who says: “I’m really angry, I’ll go down to the missile shop and let one fly at the Israelis; perhaps I’ll actually hit something.”

I’m not an expert on the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, but I don’t think it works like that. Even so, Mr Ward might also want to add some detail about whether he will hide his rocket at a