The complete idiot’s guide to Mideast peace – part 157

Egypt steps up ceasefire efforts as rockets intercepted over Tel Aviv | The Times of Israel   ‘Shin Bet releases chronology of Muhammad Abu Khdeir killing; boy lightly wounded in Ashdod; Israel declares area north of Gaza a closed military zone; drone downed over Ashdod; IDF shells Lebanon ‘

While it is comforting to note that ceasefire efforts may now be coming to light after more than a week of extensive aerial battles over Gaza and Israel, it must be remembered that this is a scenario not entirely without precedent. Indeed, much the same sequence of events has happened many times before.

Hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians begin to exceed some ill-defined crossover point and then the conflict starts to step up a gear. This drives matters forward in the conventional manner towards an almost full-blown campaign of all-out warfare, the combat increasing in frequency and intensity as each day of fighting gives way to the next.

After sufficient exposure in international media outlets and commentaries throughout the world, the numbers of casualties and the amount of devastation registered bring about calls for the swiftest of mediations and the rapid cessation of all further acts of aggression.

Subsequently this all takes place and generally what happens is this. An uneasy truce is arranged, principles and positions are restated for the record and each side then embarks on separate PR exercises to justify their actions, hoping that the world will accept or understand their narrative on events and the reasons they had to do what they did.

But what if, one day, that same world wakes up and decides that it has had quite enough of this never-ending saga and elects to shut down the whole miserable process once and for all?

What’s that you say? Can’t be done? Otherwise, it would surely have taken place long ago.

Yes, indeed. It should have happened well before now. And it still can.

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