A phoney truce !

Officially the shooting has stopped in Gaza - but it seems that this is only a temporary measure.

Israel has agreed to cease bombing Hamas targets, but it's troops will stay in place and will return fire if attacked. Hamas has not agreed to cease firing rockets into Israel and it seems inevitable that at least sporadic fire fights will continue.

Much has been said about civilian casualties in this crowded enclave. It is hard to define exactly what constitutes " civilians ". The people of Gaza elected Hamas to govern them in the full knowledge that it would use terrorist tactics to harass, kill and main Israeli citizens living in the Israeli state.

Citizens of the Gaza strip stream into the streets waving Palestinian flags and cheering Hamas at every opportunity. They have full knowledge that Hamas is fighting a war against Israel and they give their support and do nothing to even try and stop the rocket barrage. In such circumstances they can legitimately be considered enemy combatants.

Hamas seems to encourage civilian casualties because of the sympathetic coverage by the world media. It continues to fire rockets from areas with a heavy concentration of civilians in the sure knowledge that return fire will kill and main women and children. This seems to them to be an acceptable price for waging a propaganda war.

There is no hope of a lasting peace while present attitudes remain. Hate sabotages every peace plan so far put forward and both sides will eventually have to face up to two basic realities.

Israel is not going to go away - and that means that Palestinians will have to accept the loss of the land the Israeli state occupies.

The Palestinian people are entitled to form a self governing state of their own and a world body such as the UN will need to recognise that state, accept it's borders and welcome it into the community of nations.

Unless these two tenets of reality are accepted no settlement is possible, and the future seems certain to be ongoing guerilla warfare - until eventually some Arab terrorist organization manages to get their hands on a nuclear weapon - and obliterates an Israeli city such as TelAviv.

If that happens the entire Middle East will disappear under mushroom clouds - and right and wrong will become a rhetorical question.

The clock is ticking - and the hands are approaching midnight !