Its hard to see what a proportionate response would be. Israel’s first aim, and the aim of every Government, is to protect its own citizens and that includes the military. Sending in troops to fight in Gaza would be extremely dangerous (look up FIBUA) and risks huge losses to their own troops, hence the need to “soften up” the targets. This appears to be as much out of respect for Hamas’s ability to fight an urban guerrilla war as it is a desire to fight a stand off war that risks killing innocent people and destroy Mosques. Don’t forget Israel got a real bloody nose in Lebanon and will have learnt a serious lesson in that conflict.

It is also difficult to see how negotiations could start, let alone lead anywhere with so much enmity on both sides. This, coupled to the weak political position of the Israeli Government and the fractured leadership of the Palestinians, probably means that overt talks just won’t start no matter how skillful the negotiating team. They certainly couldn’t start once Hamas started to fire rockets on Israeln in a sustained campaign; this couldn’t be dismissed as a “one off” by renegades as we saw in Ireland when the IRA cease fire was broken.

Let us not forget that Bill Clinton failed miserably when he had strong leadership, international support and political will from both sides. No matter what you think of Clinton the person there is no doubt he is the one US president in recent times with the charisma and political will to negotiate a settlement. Even the Norwegians failed in similar circumstances despite years of patient, secret, diplomacy.

You also have to wonder about Hamas’s tactics and question whether they really do want a negotiated settlement. We have had 8 years of George Bush who has made it clear that he didn’t want to get involved, but that is coming to an end and he is being replaced by someone who appears to have the leadership and international backing to make headway in the region.

Obama hardly comes across as a friend of Israel so what were Hamas up to breaking the cease fire and attacking Israel in such a sustained campaign? There has been wide speculation in the media that Israel would have one last chance to attack during the US Presidential handover period, so why provoke them? Even the Egyptian Foreign Minister has criticised Hamas. And by provoking Israel Hamas has at least given Israel a fig leaf of justification and made it harder for the world to condemn them. The Hamas leadership isn’t stupid so what were they up to?

You raised some good points but as the old saying about Northern Ireland goes – if you think you know the solution you don’t understand the question.