Israel’s botched interception of an armada of ships trying to bring relief supplies into Gaza has now lost the nation its few remaining friends in the region, including Turkey and Egypt. The shooting that began when the boarding party was resisted by crew and passengers led to loss of life and serious injury in a confused and panicky affray on the lead vessel, the Turkish-owned Mavi Marmara. But the incompetence with which the operation was conducted only heightened the indignation it caused across the world. Israel continues to justify its action, saying that the violence meted out to people on the Marmara was in response to provocation by the activists. It has not been convincing, and a policy of blockade attended by such disastrous diplomatic fallout is not sustainable.

In order to restrict the militant Palestinian movement Hamas, which hates Israel’s very existence, the Israeli Government has understandably tried to deprive it of arms and ammunition by blockading the Gaza enclave by land and sea. But in the process it has laid siege to an entire community of innocent civilians, already wretchedly poor, who are caught between a cruel and intolerant Israel and a cruel and intolerant Hamas. On land, Israel uses its control of checkpoints to apply steady pressure on the population, especially refusing to allow into Gaza building material needed for reconstruction after the damage done by the Israeli army’s incursion into Gaza in early 2009. The theory appears to be that sooner or later the people of Gaza will realise their problems are all due to Hamas, and turn against it. Meanwhile, to help them realise the folly of their ways, Israel pursues a policy of collective punishment by blockade.

The Israeli navy has repeatedly turned back ships heading for Gaza while still in international waters. This policy was bound to come unstuck sooner or later, once resistance stiffened. The fact that the people organising the latest convoy included many who ...

After the shorter and the longer version of the inter-party agreement at the heart of Britain’s new coalition Government comes the Queen’s Speech, the legislative programme to translate these ideas into policy and law. There are distinctively Liberal Democrat components in the speech, and there are some that have survived from the Conservative manifesto. But this is not a traditional Tory or Thatcherite ...

At last weekend’s Kirchentag event in Munich, where Pope Benedict was once archbishop, there was disappointment that he did not attend. The massive interchurch gathering, for the second time in its history involving Catholics as well as Protestants, was a striking sign that ecumenism can still warm the blood in the land of Martin Luther, even if the impression is given that the Vatican has gone cold on the subject. ...

Shortly before the general election, the Conservatives ran a party political broadcast warning that a hung Parliament would produce a weak government. Hence the need to vote Tory. But the warning wasn't heeded. The new Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, has now to prove that prophecy wrong. Just to complete the irony of his situation, he also has to show that coalition government can be effective government, ...

As Edmund Burke remarked, if a constitutional system doesn’t bend under popular pressure, eventually it may snap. That may have been the lesson of the French Revolution, but it could also be the warning to be heeded from the British general election of 2010. The ill repute in which politicians of all persuasions are generally held, manifested on the nation’s doorsteps in recent weeks, pre-dates the scandal ...