Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders, so they voted for Hamas.

It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72per cent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 per cent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders. Rather than test Hamas's sincerity, Israel reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. It said it was blockading the Gaza Strip to ''pressure'' its people to reverse the democratic process. Israel surrounded the strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. It let in a trickle of food, fuel and medicine but not enough for survival. Oxfam says only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza last month and the United Nations says poverty is at an ''unprecedented level.''

It was in this context under a collective punishment designed to topple a democracy that some forces within Gaza did something immoral: they fired Qassam rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities, and 16 Israeli citizens were killed. This is abhorrent: targeting civilians is always murder. But it is hypocritical for Israel to claim now to speak out for the safety of civilians when it has been terrorising civilians as a matter of state policy.

The United States and European governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say Israel cannot be expected to negotiate while under rocket fire, but they demand that the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank. Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises.

According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, ''told the Israeli cabinet [on December 23] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms.'' He said Hamas was seeking two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet rejected the terms.

The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He said that while Hamas militants like much of Israel's right wing dream of driving their opponents away, ''they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future.'' Instead, ''they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967''. They were aware this means they ''will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals'' and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.

It is the only path that could yet end in peace but Israel refuses to choose it. Halevy said, ''Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas.''

Why would Israel act this way? The Government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means Israel can keep the slabs of the West Bank on its side of the wall. It means it keeps the largest settlements and controls the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing, and compromise with them.

Johann Hari writes for The Independent.

The case for Israel

In warfare, as at any time, civilian deaths are horrible. That some innocent Palestinians have died in recent days in Gaza is tragic, but the blame must be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of Hamas.

The weekend's combat began because of Hamas, not Israel. It is Hamas that is completely, religiously, devoted to destroying Israel, one life at a time.

Israel has stated time and again that it is in favour of establishing a peaceful Palestinian state. Israel has even stated it will deal with Hamas, once Hamas is willing to recognise Israel's right to exist and stop using terrorism that is, violence targeting civilians.

Israel doesn't hate Hamas because of what it is, but only because it wants to destroy Israel.

Israel almost brought Hamas to its knees half a year ago, so Hamas asked the Egyptians to ask Israel for a ceasefire, which was due to last six months. Israel agreed.

About one month short of the six months ending, Israel uncovered a Hamas tunnel going under the Gaza-Israel border. The tunnel was to be used for a Hamas operation after the ceasefire ended to attack, kill and capture as many Israeli soldiers on the Israeli side of the border as possible.

Hamas had conducted a similar operation in June 2006 and took Gilad Shalit a young Israeli soldier, captive. Since that time, it hasn't allowed the Red Cross or any other humanitarian organisation to visit him. This is in direct violation of the laws of war. (But so is targeting civilians, which has been Hamas's modus operandi since its inception in 1987.)

And given Hamas's barbaric treatment of its prisoners seen in what it did to fellow Palestinians during its successful 2007 coup against Fatah in Gaza Israel is clearly not interested in having Hamas capture more of its soldiers.

So Israel blew up the tunnel.

Hamas, having significantly restocked and upgraded its supplies during the six-month ceasefire and needing an excuse to end it, latched on to the clearly defensive Israel operation, and began firing rockets into Israel towns once again. Not that the rockets had stopped during the previous five months. But their rate had certainly dropped.

I visited Sderot, the most attacked Israeli town, before the ceasefire began, when rockets were falling up to a rate of one every three hours, during the ceasefire and again in November, when the ceasefire was beginning to break down.

The difference the reduction in rocket attacks made to the town's residents during the five months was immeasurable.

To live life in Sderot under rocket barrage is to live life afraid.

When the siren sounds, you have 10 seconds to find cover. Ten seconds. Think about driving a car. You hear the siren, and have to stop (five seconds), take your seatbelt off and get out (three seconds), then run to cover, hoping that cover, such as the public bomb shelters the Government has placed all around the town, are less than a two seconds run from your car. You can't run far in two seconds.

Hamas knows this. And yet it continues to fire rockets into the town. Why? Because it knows that Israel indeed, any country will not put up with its citizens being bombed by an enemy country.

Hamas kept firing because it wanted Israel to respond violently. This sounds illogical, but easy to understand when you realise that Hamas doesn't actually care for the welfare of the Palestinians under its control. Rather, Hamas cares only for its ideology.

And if a few dozen, or a few hundred, Palestinian lives have to be sacrificed in order to realise Hamas's goals, Hamas thinks that's OK.

Such a blase view of humanity has seen it deliberately locate most of its military infrastructure, as well as the offices of its leaders, in civilian areas. For instance, rockets are manufactured in the basements of apartment buildings, that sort of thing.

If this sounds wrong, it is, because it defies all the laws of war.

When Israel attacks Hamas in Gaza, Palestinians die. This causes Palestinians to stop focusing on their ineffective, immoral and illegal leadership, and focus on Israel. And it causes the world media to stop focusing on the completely illegal, but not very effective Hamas attacks on Israel, and look instead at the legal, completely unintended but still horrible civilian deaths in Gaza.

It's very clever of Hamas.

What still astounds me, despite living amid and studying this conflict for over a decade, is how it's on the record that Palestinians live better we're talking economy, health, education, everything when they attempt to make peace with Israel, and they live badly when they make war on Israel.

Despite this, and in spite of losing every single military confrontation they've ever had with Israel, they still attack, attack, attack.

Palestinians and their supporters call it ''resistance to occupation''. But Israel has been out of Gaza for three years and trying to end the confrontation for years. All Palestinians have to do is say, 'We won't try to kill you any more,' and a swift conclusion will follow.

The weekend violence began when, as Australia's Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard observed, Hamas unilaterally ended a ceasefire through engaging in an act of aggression against Israel, launching rockets and mortars.

Hamas traditionally places its military infrastructure in civilian areas, and uses this infrastructure to attack Israeli civilians. Israel is now trying to stop these unprovoked attacks on its people and Palestinians' so-called supporters blame Israel for the resultant deaths.

There's only one word for it: hypocrisy.

Bren Carlill is an analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.