The events leading up to the bloody takeover of Gaza by Hamas should be a matter for regret and, in many quarters, shame. No one, least of all Israel, should take any satisfaction from watching the Palestinian dream of an independent state dissolve into two failed statelets - Islamist Hamastan and a West Bank sliced up by Jewish settlements - contesting Israeli borders pushed deep into occupied Palestinian land.

As with everything to do with this emotionally turbo-charged conflict, everyone will distribute the blame for this tragic implosion according to political preference or prejudice: is it more the result of Israeli militarism or Palestinian paramilitarism; American fecklessness or European irrelevance?