Depressing front pages on the serious papers today

Just been down to the newsagents. The Guardian and Indy seem to to be pretty much appropriate, but to my eyes the Telegraph's "Gaza in flames" seems just a tad too gleeful (and no I haven't read what they've written, I am merely passing a comment on the presentation of their front page, which looks to me like the newspaper equivalent of a Fox News channel strapline).

As for a reaction to the actual news, I can only really suggest that it does rather confirm what Jonathan Freedland wrote a few weeks back, which I linked to at the time. The interesting paragraph was:

Israel has failed to learn these last 40 years [that] if you refuse to deal with a group because it's too extreme, you don't get to deal with a more pliant, moderate alternative. On the contrary, you eventually confront a force that is even more extreme. It happened when Fatah was eclipsed by Hamas - and it could happen again.

Freedland's original suggestion was that we might see al-Qaeda becoming a more serious force in the region, but his point still arguably stands if instead Hamas harden their position to stop themselves being pushed out.