It really is amazing just how different we perceive things on this issue, isn't it Dave?

I'm grateful for your take on this. It demonstrates how wide a gap there is between the US position and that of the Europeans (which I self-evidentally share).

No wonder peace in this region is currently so remote a prospect, since everyone thinks they are right and the other side is wrong.

On what you said - the one "incident" as you describe it came at a time when peace was within sight. It was a deal-wrecker, when Israel knew there was a deal on the table. Irrespective of whether Israel was justified in killing the military head of Hamas (as a quick aside, I think they were, although not in the circumstances in which they did it), it seems calculated to spoil things. Which it did. It is politically impossible for the split factions which the PLO barely manages to represent to talk peace after Israel indiscriminately bombs 9 children dead, just as it would be if Hamas or Islamic Jihad did the same thing in reverse. Israel could not be expected to talk peace if 9 Israeli kids were murdered. Not acknowledging that is not acknowledging the political reality of the situation.