It should be a source of pride to Israelis that they have found the internal strength to try, convict and jail their former president Moshe Katzev on sexual harassment charges and their former prime minister Ehud Olmert for corruption.

A similar approach must be taken towards the Hamas suspects. They should be the subject of a full, thorough and impartial investigation, leading to a fair trial.

The central problem is that Hamas has since 1989 kidnapped Israelis as a bargaining chip to win the release of its imprisoned fighters. Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shia terror militia, copied Hamas tactics in 2006, triggering a month-long war. After that Lebanon war ended, Hezbollah conceded that it would not have snatched its hostages had it known it would unleash such a huge military response from Israel. Israeli commanders and politicians drew what appeared to be the appropriate conclusion: in the asymmetric wars against Hamas and Hezbollah, with both groups pledged to eliminate the state of Israel, it takes a dramatic show of force to deter future acts of terrorism.

Now the Israeli government seems to be resisting this full-blown military option in favour of individual pursuit. That is a difficult, immensely complex but correct choice. The Middle East is too feverish, too perilously brittle, too swamped with refugees, too drenched in blood to cope with another war.

Read this article in full at The Times.