Our Government hasn't been particularly eager, from what one can see from the media, to condemn Israel's strong-arm tactics in Gaza. It's not that Joseph Muscat approves that sort of thing, obviously, it's just that our grasp of foreign affairs seems to be such that we have to find ourselves on the wrong side of history all the time.
I put before you the Ukraine and Libya, international affairs in the administration of which our Foreign Minister conducted himself with a savoir faire and deftness of touch that rendered him comparable to his colleague, the Minister for Coppery & Nourishment Delivery.
But leaving aside the conduct of affairs, foreign or domestic, maybe Israel's actions in Gaza have struck a chord with Dr Muscat, even if only unconsciously.
The world seems to hold Israel to a standard that is much higher than that to which its opponents, particularly Hamas in Gaza, are held. It's OK for the latter to lob missiles indiscriminately in the general direction of Tel Aviv, caring not one jot on whom the good fortune of being a target falls, but it's not OK, by a long shot, for the country that is being subject to these attacks to retaliate.
It is clear that Israel hit back with such force that "shock & awe" hardly comes into it: they were savage, brutal and behaved like thugs. But surely, the only difference between what they did - and seem ready to do again - is a matter of scale and efficiency. Hamas don't seem able, for whatever reason, to wreak the same havoc on Tel Aviv as Israel are achieving on Gaza, but that is certainly not for lack of will or desire.
Why should this strike a chord with Muscat, I hear you asking?
Well, isn't this the same, in a different context, as what goes on constantly here when the way the Labour Party conducts itself is measured against the way the Nationalist Party conducted itself during its years of government?
Muscat himself consistently answers the criticism levelled at his style of ruling over us by jibing, in the time-honoured school-yard fashion, "yah boo, sucks to you, you were just as bad".
To start with, the PN in Government were not just as bad as Muscat's bunch and, to be going on with, Muscat suckered the whingers and whiners that things were going to change (rather than go to hell in a handcart)
Muscat, being an intelligent chap, knows this and you can understand why he might feel some residual sympathy for Israel: people are doing to them what is done to his opponents, at his instigation, all the time here.
_________
* I'm not entirely sure the word exists, but the point of the piece is to irritate Lil'Elves, not educate them.