ONE image to have come out of the Middle East has changed the West's view of the current crisis more than any other. It is the one that shows a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Rami Aldur, huddling with his father Jamal for safety behind a large tin drum beside a wall. In one frame, you can see the terror and horror all over their faces. The father is shouting: "The child! The child!" as the bullets slam into the wall over their heads.

In the next frame, the boy is slumped. Shot dead. His father is collapsing too, gravely injured. There has been so much debate about this image in America that the country's most prestigious news programme, 60 Minutes on CBS, decided to investigate. Had the Israelis really been so callous as to target innocent children, or was it all just a put up job to boost Palestinian propaganda?

CBS called on an old colleague of mine to investigate, which shows the esteem the British police are held in around the world.

Doug Smith was a former Detective Chief Inspector with Cleveland Police who then moved to the National Crime Faculty at Bramshill, Hampshire. Now retired and living in Hartlepool, Doug has just returned from the West Bank where he has been looking into the killing which happened on September 30.

Far be it from me to scoop a multi-national giant like CBS or a programme like 60 Minutes - average number of viewers: 30m - and reveal Doug's conclusions. However, one of the most striking aspects of what he has told me concerns the wall behind the father and son. It is the wall of a block of 40 houses which the Arabs were using as a barricade. They sheltered safely behind it while firing at the Israelis - which is why the father and son were in such deadly danger when they were caught in front of it.

When Doug reached Gaza City, he was surprised to find that the wall - and the houses - had all gone. The Israelis had moved all 40 families out of the houses and demolished the whole lot so that the Arabs no longer had a barricade.

ONE of the more perturbing aspects of the US Presidential elections was that George W Bush appeared not to know the name of the Israeli Prime Minister.

But then, these are two of the most poor candidates ever to have sought the job as the most powerful man on earth. Al Gore is probably a nice, honourable man, but he is so stiff and completely unable to play-act - as the job demands. Bush has bucketloads of charisma and seems like a fun guy - it's just that he doesn't appear to know much about what he's going to do.

These failings are why the election has been so tight. They also explain why Bill Clinton would have walked a third term, if he had been allowed to stand. Like Margaret Thatcher, he has done three things: led, motivated and influenced, largely through the power of his communication skills and sheer weight of personality. That is what has made them both such formidable leaders.

I IMAGINE that when the digger moved towards the Dome on Tuesday, most people merely thought they had come to pull it down. It has become one of those buildings where absolutely nothing goes right for it. Even the world's most audacious robbery has turned into a complete farce. However, as film director Michael Winner said on television the other morning, if they re-enacted the attempted heist every day, the crowds would come flocking in.

It is obvious, though, why the robbers chose to target the Dome: they knew that whatever time of the day they turned up, there wouldn't be any potential witnesses around to recognise them.