The complete idiot’s guide to Mideast peace – part 128

Mother of missing teen appeals for world help | The Times of Israel   ‘After 8 days, Rachel Frankel tells CNN she barely sleeps or eats while her son’s whereabouts uncertain, calls on ‘any decent person’ to help’

And just how would it be possible for the world to help Rachel with the safe return of her son in so fractious and critical a situation as that of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?  And what about all those other mothers whose sons are put in harm’s way by the myriad pressures, conditions and narratives long featured in this decades-old power struggle?

International protests by the great and the good everywhere on Earth?

Sanctions of increasing severity on those deemed primarily responsible for the deed?

Material assistance in the search and of a form judged to be appropriate and timely in such harrowing circumstances?

Condemnation by leaders and statesmen on all sides and dire warnings from religious and secular bodies as to the fate of those engaging in such nefarious activities?

Any and all of these might certainly help but, somehow and in these matters especially, it has always proved difficult for the world to respond quickly enough or maintain focus on so changeable and diverse a scene. Tomorrow’s dawn arrives and with it a new and more pressing complexity vies for attention and remedy. There is no ready-made, one-size-fits-all solution to address problems that have successfully managed to defy all diplomacy and reasoned argument for generations.

Then maybe it’s time there was.

www.laxiankey.com – ‘ for those of us with better things to do.’

Mothers the world over would most definitely welcome such an arrangement, one that sees no more of their sons or daughters placed in positions where prospects of kidnapping, death, pain and deprivation of liberty are forever present. Not a few fathers might also be so disposed.