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When George Bush responded to the 9/11 attacks by launching his “war on terror”, Ariel Sharon seized the moment. Israel, too, was fighting terror, he insisted, and there was no difference between al Qa'eda and Hamas or Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.The Israeli prime minister obtained Mr Bush's backing for burying the Oslo peace process and launching a series of incursions into the West Bank that left the PLO leader Yasser Arafat under the permanent siege that hastened his death.

When Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election the following year, Israel and the US insisted that it was a terrorist entity and began implementing the economic sanctions that became a full-blown siege in 2007 after Hamas seized control of Gaza: it was all part of the “war on...