A United Nations agency said Tuesday that conditions in the Gaza Strip are growing more desperate following its decision to suspend aid to repair homes damaged in last summer’s conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The Israeli government has launched a public diplomacy campaign to discredit the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) recent decision to start an inquiry into what the Palestinians call Israeli “war crimes” in Judea and Samaria.

One of the problems with Israeli public diplomacy is that it is predictably reactive and generally negative. Suppose, for once, Israel were to take a different tack, one based on the principles used by judo experts--namely, to use the opponent's own strengths and moves against him