In an interview with Israel's president, Shimon Peres, Adrian Blomfield of the UK's The Daily Telegraph cluelessly accused Israel of an unnecessarily harsh and disproportionate reaction during its defensive invasion of Gaza last winter.

In response Peres reminded Blomfield that for over eight years Israel suffered through more than 12,000 rockets and missile attacks launched from Gaza which fell on homes, schools, hospitals and other civilian areas, killing, injuring and traumatizing thousands, numerous attempts by terrorists to sneak into Israel to kill, including kidnapping a soldier, who is still held hostage, and other acts of war from Gaza. And then he bluntly told Blomfield.

"One of the human rights is to remain alive.

We didn't initiate it (the war in Gaza). We never went to war on our own initiative. We were attacked, in 61 years nine times, with full-fledged wars and endless terrorist attacks. But if a terrorist does not respect the lives of children, the children of ours and their own children, if they don't respect the lives of civilians, our civilians and their own civilians, and they don't respect mosques and they don't respect ambulances, what can the law do?"

"They talk of occupied Gaza? What occupation? We took out our army. We took out our settlers and some of you watched on television how difficult it was and of course it was. Nobody forced us. We handed it over to the Palestinians and for eight years they fired missiles against our civilian life. Can anybody tell me why? Can anybody tell me what was the purpose of it? And Israel restrained and restrained and restrained until the citizens told the government, can't you defend our lives?"