Impunity is the word that comes to mind. Eight hundred dead Palestinians. Eight hundred. That’s infinitely more than twice the total dead of flight MH17 over Ukraine. A

nd if you refer only to the “innocent” dead – ie no Hamas fighters, young sympathisers or corrupt Hamas officials, with whom the Israelis will, in due course, have to talk – then the women and children and elderly who have been slaughtered in Gaza are still well over the total number of MH17 victims.

And there’s something very odd, isn’t there, about our reactions to these two outrageous death tolls. In Gaza, we plead for a ceasefire but let them bury their dead in the sweltering slums of Gaza and cannot even open a humanitarian route for the wounded. For the passengers on MH17, we demand – immediately – proper burial and care for the relatives of the dead. We curse those who left bodies lying in the fields of eastern Ukraine – as many bodies have been lying, for a shorter time, perhaps, but under an equally oven-like sky, in Gaza.

Because – and this has been creeping up on me for years – we don’t care so much about the Palestinians, do we? We care neither about Israeli culpability, which is far greater because of the larger number of civilians the Israeli army has killed. Nor, for that matter, Hamas’s capability. Of course, God forbid that the figures should have been the other way round. If 800 Israelis had died and only 35 Palestinians, I think I know our reaction.

We would call it – rightly – a slaughter, an atrocity, a crime for which the killers must be made accountable. Yes, Hamas should be made accountable, too. But why is it that the only criminals we are searching for today are the men who fired one – perhaps two – missiles at an airliner over Ukraine?

If Israel’s dead equalled those of the Palestinians – and let me repeat, thank heavens this is not the case – I suspect that the Americans would be offering all military support to an Israel endangered by “Iranian-backed terrorists”. We would be demanding that Hamas hand over the monsters who fired rockets at Israel and who are, by the way, trying to hit aircraft at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport. But we are not doing this. Because those who have died are mostly Palestinians.

Israel-Gaza conflict: At least two killed in West Bank protests against Israel's military offensive in Gaza Show all 8 1 /8 Israel-Gaza conflict: At least two killed in West Bank protests against Israel's military offensive in Gaza Israel-Gaza conflict: At least two killed in West Bank protests against Israel's military offensive in Gaza West Bank protests A Palestinian woman walks on the street full of stones which were hurled in clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces fill the street in front of an Israeli watch tower of the Qalandia checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah Israel-Gaza conflict: At least two killed in West Bank protests against Israel's military offensive in Gaza West Bank protests Palestinians walk on the street full of stones which were hurled in clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces fill the street in front of an Israeli watch tower of the Qalandia checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah Israel-Gaza conflict: At least two killed in West Bank protests against Israel's military offensive in Gaza West Bank protests A Palestinian protester holds a Palestinian flag as he runs past burning tyres during clashes with Israeli troops, at a protest against Israeli offensive in Gaza, at Qalandia checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah Israel-Gaza conflict: At least two killed in West Bank protests against Israel's military offensive in Gaza West Bank protests Israel reports say that protesters threw rocks and other missiles in protest Getty Images Israel-Gaza conflict: At least two killed in West Bank protests against Israel's military offensive in Gaza West Bank protests Scores of injured protesters were seen being carried away from the area Getty Images Israel-Gaza conflict: At least two killed in West Bank protests against Israel's military offensive in Gaza West Bank protests An Israeli security officer walks past burning tires as at least 10,000 Palestinian protesters marching against Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip clash with Israeli soldiers and border police at the Israeli Qalandiya checkpoint, between Jerusalem and Ramallah Getty Images Israel-Gaza conflict: At least two killed in West Bank protests against Israel's military offensive in Gaza West Bank protests Israeli security officers take position as at least 10,000 Palestinian protesters marching against Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip clash with Israeli soldiers and border police at the Israeli Qalandiya checkpoint, between Jerusalem and Ramallah Israel-Gaza conflict: At least two killed in West Bank protests against Israel's military offensive in Gaza West Bank protests At least 10,000 Palestinian protesters marching against Israel's military offensive in Gaza clash with soldiers and border police at the Israeli Qalandiya checkpoint, between Jerusalem and Ramallah

More questions. What’s the limit for Palestinian deaths before we have a ceasefire? Eight hundred? Or 8,000? Could we have a scorecard? The exchange rate for dead? Or would we just wait until our gorge rises at the blood and say enough – even for Israel’s war, enough is enough. It’s not as if we have not been through all this before.

From the massacre of Arab villagers by Israel’s new army in 1948, as it is set down by Israeli historians, to the Sabra and Shatila massacre, when Lebanese Christian allies of Israel murdered up to 1,700 people in 1982 while Israeli troops watched; from the Qana massacre of Lebanese Arabs at the UN base – yes, the UN again – in 1996, to another, smaller terrible killing at Qana (again) 10 years later. And so to the mass killing of civilians in the 2008-9 Gaza war. And after Sabra and Shatila, there were inquiries, and after Qana there was an inquiry and after Gaza in 2008-9, there was an inquiry.

Don’t we remember the weight of it, somewhat lightened of course when Judge Goldstone did his best to disown it, when – according to my Israeli friends – he came under intense personal pressure?

In other words, we have been here before. The claim that only “terrorists” are to blame for those whom Hamas kills and only “terrorists” are to blame for those whom Israel kills (Hamas “terrorists”, of course). And the constant claim, repeated over and over and over, that Israel has the highest standards of any army in the world and would never hurt civilians. I recall here the 17,500 dead of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, most of whom were civilians. Have we forgotten all this?

And apart from impunity, the word stupidity comes to mind. I will forget here the corrupt Arabs and the killers of Isis and the wholesale mass murderers of Iraq and Syria. Perhaps their indifference to “Palestine” is to be expected. They do not claim to represent our values. But what do we make of John Kerry, Obama’s Secretary of State, who told us last week that the “underlying issues” of the Israeli-Palestinian war need to be addressed? What on earth was he doing all last year when he claimed he was going to produce a Middle East peace in 12 months? Doesn’t he realise why the Palestinians are in Gaza?