Thanks Irwin for that. The easier way when we say something that goes too far is to find a way to show we were right all along. But that's how wars build up, both silly flame wars in places like this, and real wars on the ground where children get killed.

What saddens me - well, it all saddens me, but this is one special aspect of the sadness - is the ratchet effect of atrocities.

There's a saying in football "get your retaliation in first", a sort of semi-serious joke. But the thing is, in all the brutality in the Holy Land, noone ever seems to say in face of some appalling new atrocity, from either side "someone has already got the reprisal in for that" - and yet every time, they have, cup filled up and running over. So instead of this baby's death being seen in the context of the deaths of all those other children already in their graves over the past few months, there was a fresh reprisal bombardment, and a two year old infant among those in intensive care. An Arab baby this time. Who's keeping score?

Nothing unique about that, just the same thing happens in relation to Northern Ireland, and anywhere else where lookalike neighbours are wading into each other in internecine conflicts. It's what's meant by the term I used, "the politics of the last atrocity" - the ethically selective memory wipes the slate clean of all "our side" has done in the build up to the last atrocity "their side" has come up with, and a new starting line is drawn - knowing full well the others operate on these lines as well, but with a different calendar of atrocities.