Back to Gideon RachmanSo - more than 1,200 deaths later - who won? Israel has announced that it has achieved its goals and called a ceasefire - conveniently enough, just two days before Obama’s inauguration. Hamas says that it has also won and has also declared a ceasefire.
Both sides can claim a victory of sorts. Israel will say that it has stopped the rockets. Hamas has survived. Israel will say that it has re-established its deterrent power. Hamas will believe that it has proved its status as the real face of Palestinian resistance.
And then there is the battle for world opinion. It was probably shrewd of Hamas to declare its own ceasefire in response to Israel’s. A decision to keep firing rockets would have fitted the Israeli narrative that Hamas cared little for innocent Palestinian lives. On the other hand, the Israelis will have been encouraged that so many European leaders - Sarkozy, Brown, Merkel, Zapatero - were prepared to pose for photos with the Israeli leadership today.
The fate of Hamas and of its armed struggle against Israel will only become clear over the next few months. Gauging the impact of the conflict on the broader region will take even longer. At the risk of sounding like a liberal hand-wringer, it seems to me that in the long run everybody loses - Palestine is even more smashed-up, embittered and dysfunctional than when the fighting began, and Israel has created more enemies and pushed the prospect of peace ever further into the distance. And over 1.200 people are dead.
This blog covers a variety of topics from US foreign policy to European politics and the Middle East - and whatever else happens to be in the news or catch my attention. I joined the FT as chief foreign affairs commentator in 2006, after a 15-year career at The Economist which included stints as a correspondent in Brussels, Bangkok and Washington. I write a weekly column on foreign affairs, which appears in the paper on Tuesdays. Occasionally my FT colleagues contribute posts to this blog.
Geoff Dyer is the FT's China bureau chief. He has been a correspondent in Shanghai and in Brazil and has also covered the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries from London.
Roula Khalaf is the FT's Middle East editor. She has worked for the FT since 1995, first as North Africa correspondent, then Middle East correspondent and most recently as Middle East editor. Before joining the FT, she was a staff writer for Forbes magazine in New York. 
James Blitz is the FT's defence and diplomatic editor. He has been the FT's political editor, based in London, and Rome bureau chief. James is a former Moscow bureau chief for the Sunday Times.
Alan Beattie is the FT's world trade editor. He has previously been economics leader writer and spent two years in Washington DC as chief US economics correspondent. Before joining the FT, Alan was an economist at the Bank of England. 
Victor Mallet is the FT's Madrid correspondent. He is a former Asia editor of the FT, and, in more than 20 years at the organisation, has also worked in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. In 1990 he escaped from Kuwait after being one of the few foreign correspondents there when Iraq invaded. 
Stefan Wagstyl is the FT's eastern Europe editor, co-ordinating coverage of the region. He has also been the FT's bureau chief in Tokyo and New Delhi.
