–While protecting its security, Israel has to find creative ways of dealing with situations like this which put the public onus on its enemies and not, as almost invariably happens, on itself. (One way to do that, an Israeli journalist suggested, would have been for Israel to announce that it would allow the ships to enter Gaza if Hamas released Gilad Shalit.) Almost everything Israel does these days seems plodding and obvious and designed to make it look like the villain.

I am rather shocked they did not say such a thing. That is a good point and I had not thought of the capacity to link the two.