I think we're living through a rather painful phase where it's fashionable to use the most emotive available language at every opportunity. Usually because there's no substance to an argument and so it relies on appeals to emotion. But that doesn't mean that certain words, emotive or not, have no meaning.

Genocide, ethnic cleansing, and yes, apartheid, these all describe real things that really happen. Rolling our eyes too quickly makes us blind to genuine atrocities.

Apartheid describes a state where people live alongside each other but are denied equal rights and equal living conditions. I think that describes perfectly accurately the situation in Gaza. I think everybody in the West would affirm that if they were given a choice between living in Gaza City or the West Bank or Tel Aviv.

I'm not going to get into whether Israel MUST enforce the blockade, there are a lot of "ifs" and "buts" in that conversation, but there's certainly the question of HOW they enforce the blockade. And whether it must be enforced in a way that is so punishing (perhaps even inhumane) for the ~2 million innocent civilians living in Gaza. Your justification for the blockade focuses entirely on Hamas, which is sensible. I understand your point. But as I point out in the article, Hamas is not the Palestinian people.

Which brings us neatly to "collective punishment." I'm not sure I agree that Israel have gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian deaths. Several human rights organisations are sounding the alarm about the conditions. There's a severe lack of clean water and power. Several "safe zones" have ben bombed. And let's be honest, I think Netanyahu is far from concerned about killing Palestinian civilians. But again, "collective punishment" is a term of International law used to describe military action that excessively harms civilians. I don't think it's inaccurate, never mind scorchingly so, to describe the conditions in Gaza in that way.

I certainly wouldn't have Israel roll over. I understand that Hamas can't be reasoned with. I'm just wholly unconvinced that the problem of terrorism against Israel can be solved by maintaining the status quo in Gaza and bombing it into rubble when they attack Israel. As many people have pointed out, Israel's actions right now are radicalising a new generation of Palestinians just as surely as Hamas' actions were guaranteed to indirectly kill thousands of Palestinians.

This is a horrible situation. And nobody's hands are clean. They've been trying to solve it with rockets and senseless murder for decades. I must admit, I'm beginning to suspect that might not the most effective, humane or far-sighted approach.

p.s. Thanks very much for the madwomanesque clapping.