The Hole in the Wall

Steel, Mark. "Not a shopping spree, just a taste of freedom"

Occasionally there's a news story that can be presented as so jolly everyone must find it heartening – Havant and Waterlooville scoring against Liverpool, kittens rescued from chimneys, that Indonesian dictator bastard dying this week, that sort of thing.

You might think the escape of hundreds of thousands of people from the siege in Gaza would come under this category. On the point of starvation, with almost no fuel, electricity or medical supplies, they've blown up the wall at the border and danced into Egypt, smiling and waving at the reporters. They're such merry scenes you imagine reporters spluttering the way they did when the Americans marched into Baghdad, when they came out with stuff like "This old man behind me is so jubilant he has quite literally burst into flames with joy" ....

.... But instead it's been reported as just about acceptable, but not the sort of unruly behaviour to be approved of. Or it's seen as frivolous, such as the report in The New York Times that reads: "Palestinians used a bulldozer to knock down a portion of the wall and continue a shopping spree." A shopping spree? Do they think the leadership of Hamas said: "Oooh my goodness, have you seen the spring collection on display in the Sinai Desert branch of Debenhams? They've got the cutest little calf-length boots that were made with me in mind. If I don't have them I'll die – get the Semtex and the detonator."