If it is they certainly fight dirty over there, with more than 300 killed in Gaza and the wounded total nearing 1,000 (not that there's much medicine to treat them with, thanks to the Israeli blockade). The prime mover behind the Israeli bombing of Gaza is defence minister and Labour candidate in the forthcoming elections Ehud Barack, currently running third behind foreign minister and Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (the prospect of Benjy resuming power is enough to bring most western politicians out in a rash). Barack, who reckons that the border with Lebanon has been much quieter since Israel's invasion in 2006, says it's now time to fight, not talk, with Hamas, the elected government of Gaza. But with more rockets being launched at Israel and Israeli civilians being killed outside a synagogue by a knifeman he may find he's uncorked a particularly nasty genie from the Gaza bottleneck. Under such a violent attack most Palestinians are likely to unite against Israel, whatever their reservations about Hamas. In the meantime the UK is trying to have it both ways as usual, making pious noises about both sides ceasing hostilities while signally failing to suggest anything that might bring peace to the region or rein in the Israelis. And we've heard barely a squeak from Middle East 'envoy' Tony Blair who's supposed to be working his magic in the region by achieving a Northern Ireland-style peace settlement. Blair, as usual, is doing nothing to upset the Americans who seem to think that any action by Israel has to be supported unconditionally. The only guaranteed winner in all this is Iran, whose influence will grow still further, despite the presence in Tehran of an unpopular and mostly incompetent regime. But when your enemies give you presents like this, you don't need to be any good.