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Gaza

The hon. Gentleman is making a very sensible argument about how terrorist organisations—and in the case of Gaza, a terrorist regime—deliberately try to provoke overreaction from their enemies, but I think he should pay more attention to the following aspect of the Israelis' point of view. I doubt if they ever thought they were going to win a propaganda war in the current situation, but let us consider it in relation to the invasion of Lebanon. That met with a similar degree of opposition worldwide, but is it not the case that there was an element of delayed deterrence in that the rocket attacks from that part of Israel's neighbourhood have almost died away completely? Should we not recognise that if the primary purpose of the current Israeli action is to stop the rockets, they may be making the calculation that it is worth losing a propaganda war in order to achieve that?