Forgotten Gaza

The BBC has a good article on the situation in Gaza. The area is completely shut off from the world, and many countries are ignoring it because Hamas is considered a terrorist organization. Putting that discussion aside, am I the only one who thinks that punishing the Palestinians like this might not be the way to get them to make peace with Israel? We're basically saying to them "your ideas are wrong, you're bad people, and we don't care if you suffer and die." So how can we expect them to cooperate with us?! To pull out an old truism: you can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar.