Re: where is the government?

This is something on which I profoundly disagree with you. I am not in favour of the rule of terror, but of civilisation. Hamas does not represent this latter by any stretch of the imagination. As I am sure you know, Hamas was nursed by Netanyahu for years using Qatari funds because he wanted to counter the influence of the PLO. Divide and conquer. It was not for nothing that Arafat referred to Hamas as 'Israel's creature', and the Washington Post called Hamas “Israel’s Taliban: an Islamist group whose antecedents had been laid down by the West in a battle against a leftist enemy.” You write: "Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine". This is quite untrue. Hamas has not won any elections in the West Bank, and the last election it won in Gaza was in 2006, when it won with a minority of the vote (44 per cent). Hamas then murdered their opponents and seized control of the territory. The majority of Gazans were not even born when the last election took place, let alone of voting age. Only about 8 per cent of present day Gazans ever voted for Hamas. The notion that an election nearly 20 years ago confers any kind of democratic legitimacy on a government is sheer lunacy. Hamas' recent public executions are not resistance, but reconquest. These were Palestinians killed by Palestinians, without any due process, not as an act of justice, but of revenge. They are meant to establish Hamas' authority; but they reveal what Hamas is. Hamas has totally lost its legitimacy and now seeks to regain it through terror. This was the inevitable result of Trump's so-called peace deal, even if the latter was still worth it for the sake of the ceasefire. Peace requires civilisation, not just ceasefire. It requires civilian rule and a clear path to democracy. The Palestinians need protection, but they do not need to be patronised. They must be permitted to build their own society and run their own affairs; and this they cannot do if the government remains in the hands of those who rule by terror. But instead of self-rule and statehood, Trump is offering to replace the rule of terror with continued occupation by other means, and with the rule of Tony Blair - God help us all!