Few Points:

The fence is not a border. The people of Gaza are under the occupying control of Israel since the 1967 war. How is it a border? Remeber there is no country of Palestine - so this is not a border.

As the occupying power the government of Israel has a responsibility to the inhabintants of Gaza. However since the Democratic election of Hamas in free and fair elections Israel has imposed illegal collective punishment on the 2 million people of Gaza (for exercising their democratic right - the result of which Israel didn't like).
This collective punishment has meant that Gaza has become an open prison where Water and Power have been rationed. The economy has been destroyed by a blockade and 2 wars. Everyday items are prevented from entering Gaza on the pretence that they could be used as weapons. In response to this Gazans built tunnels to sneak in items. Fisherman are regularly shot and killed by the Israeli navy. Farmers are shot and killed in the fields near the fence. Regular incursions over the fence by Israel are used to bulldoze houses, olive groves and crops. The Israeli airforce overfly the City "sonic booming" the residents nightly.
This is a living hell for the residents where Israel controls nearly every aspect of their daily lives.
It has also not dislodged Hamas - Whose govenment is one of the only employers of anyone in the city where 50% are unemployed.
Hamas are not nice people, and have a horrible charter that seeks the destruction of Israel; but characterising people in desperate situations all as terrorists is incorrect. Gaza contains all sorts of men women and children with all sorts of views, all sorts of dreams and aspirations. They are like any other city - but put yourself in their situation - what would you do? You can only poke people with a stick so much.
Israel does not seek any peace. they are happy with the status quo where their creeping colonialisation of the west bank continues, and where the Palestinians are marginalised economically and physically into Bantustans.Unable to build new homes, restricted from driving on settler only roads. This is the very definition of Apartheid. It is on the basis of this that we as individuals, organisations and governements should be boycotting Israel until it changes its policies and engages in genuine peace negotiations.

(Israeli Arabs vote in Israeli elections. There are Israeli Arab political parties. I don’t get your ‘apartheid’ comment.)

A United Nations report (Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid) has made this accusation.

(There are elections in Palestinian Territories).
But Israel and the USA only respect them when the side that they want to win actually wins. The Palestinians were punished after Hamas won the election in 2006)

(And the ‘stolen land’ argument is disputable).
At the beginning of 1948 only 6 per cent of Palestinian land was Jewish owned. In 1949 Israel was in possession of 78 per cent of Palestinian land. They didn’t pay anything for it. They just drove the Palestinian people out or killed them. For anyone who cares to look this is well documented. In the village of Lydd (now the Israeli city of Lod), for example, 176 men were murdered and the 50,000 inhabitants were forced at gunpoint to march to the border with Jordan and many died on the way. Jonathan Cook, in his book Disappearing Palestine, writes how when the Israeli soldier leading this attack (Yigal Alon) asked Ben Gurion what was to be done with the inhabitants Ben Gurion replied, “drive them out”. This was repeated all over Palestine in 1948. The Palestinian people were chased out and their property labelled “abandoned” and then taken/stolen by the Israeli state. Thousands were murdered.

(You could argue that the land was stolen from the Jews before being taken back).

Only if you believe the bible is a documented history. But even then why would the fact that the Jews were a nation 2,000 years ago in an ancient Israel confer on their decedents a right to dispossess the Palestinians now? Cook quotes Israeli sociologist and peace activist Jeff Halper: “Although the ancient Israelites and Judeans had sovereignty over the country for only 1,300 of its 10,000 years of recorded history (and a third of which was under Babylonian, Greek or Roman Suzerainty), in Zionist thought our claims trump any others including 1,300 years of Muslim rule. (taken from: An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel)

(PS. Instead ofgetting all your political opinion from the Owen Jones column in the Guardian, why don’t you go to Tel Aviv and see how the Israelis and Arabs actually live. They are quite integrated).

Owen Jones is ok for domestic stuff his book `Chavs’ and `The Establishment’ are pretty good. But he isn’t someone I’d read on the occupation of Palestine. Chomsky, Ilan Pappé and Jonathan Cook are much better.

I don’t place too much trust in newspaper columns. If I want to educate my opinion I tend to read a book.

I would prefer to go to Gazza and see how the Palestinians live there. But it is very dangerous and the Israeli’s keep cutting the water and the electricity off. Not to mentions the snipers taking pot shots at its inhabitants.

Edited by Bert the Head (09 Jun 2018 8.51am)

Aside from the opinion that the west are quite right to be enemies of Hamas.....I have little issue with your paragraphs dealing with the injustice of how we got here.

However, it doesn't change much.

Hamas are not an organization that I have much truck with, but seeing as we have supported the
mujaheddin, Pol Pot and happily support Saudi Arabia (the biggest exporters of Islamic terror) it seems tough to single out the only line of defense that the Palestinians have.

Also Hamas is Israel's baby. They supported it in the early days to undermine the PLO which was pretty much a secular organization.

this Pride parade?

[Link]

Where ultra orthodox Jews stab the participants. Also note that unlike Arab knife wielding terrorists he was not summarily shot to death by the police.