UN office questions Israeli crackdown on West Bank | The Times of Israel  ‘International body’s human rights division urges IDF to exercise restraint in search for kidnapped teens’

This is another of those ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t ‘ scenarios. Using restraint might require that a less intensive search be carried out and opportunities are then missed in finding the missing teenagers. A lack of restraint increases the chances of friction and fatalities which, in turn, adds to the difficulties already inherent in the situation, making it become even more problematic than it already is.

It’s a classic case where sympathies can be extended to both sides and yet blame must be shared in equal measure for the faults and failings that such traumatic events have brought along in their wake.

Ideally, prevention of these kidnappings in the first place would have been, by far, the better solution. But, in our less than perfect world, this is not always going to be the case and such hindsight can be of little comfort to those waiting for the return of loved ones and others who will now never return.

Could all this have been avoided and even worse crimes prevented if certain measures had been taken well beforehand, measures than might then have completely circumvented so much of the turmoil and tensions that have existed for many decades between Palestinians and Israelis?

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

Sometimes even the oldest of games can benefit from the inclusion of one or two new rules. Especially if the game has gone on for far too long.

THE TOWERS OF HANOI

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