Re: where is the government?

I do believe that the Palestinian people have the right to armed resistance, and - crucially - a right to collectively determine their own future within the context of a sovereign Palestinian state, and not to have that future decided for them by America, or Blair - or by armed militants in their own country. Hamas has repeatedly blocked elections since 2007. What is wrong with the idea of the Palestinians themselves deciding who governs them? You talk of Western sensibilities, but it is Palestinian sensibilities that ought to count. Admittedly, all this is academic, because there is, as yet, little hope of democracy under the proposed 'technocratic' government, and even less hope of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu will see to that. The Palestinians will be lucky if Israel does not find an excuse to resume its genocide. Personally (and not claiming to necessarily speak for the Palestinian people) I would prefer a secular organisation like the PLO or Fatah to an Islamist organisation like Hamas. It was Netanyahu and the Americans who nursed Hamas like a viper in Palestine's bosom on the time honoured principle of divide and conquer.