When did Israel give a God-forsaken people the chance to go it alone?

YOUR columnist Steven King’s defence of the Israeli actions in Gaza is an interesting exercise in intellectual acrobatics (January 7).

Stripped of all its humanitarian spin, it comes down to this... Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, destroying all its settlements in the process. The argument appears to be that this was the opportunity for the Palestinians to begin the process of building their own state.

Nobody would dispute that Israeli soldiers left the area but not in a way that would enable anything positive to develop. They continued to control the land, sea and air borders.