Many may imagine that the deaths of almost 300 children during the latest Gaza offensive, and the photographs the world has seen of Palestinian children maimed or killed, will give even the most right-wing of Israelis pause for thought. Unfortunately, as far as the hardliners are concerned, the opposite is the case.

Former Israeli prime minister, and one of the founders of the Israeli state, Golda Meir, long ago came up with a much-quoted formula which defined the killing of Palestinian children by Israelis as just another of the crimes that Arabs committed against Israel. "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children," she claimed. "We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children."

So there we have it. According to this specious logic, the more Palestinian children the Israeli army kills, the more wronged and the more victimised the most enthusiastic perpetrators and supporters of such indiscriminate inhumanity …