Massive rocket barrage on Israel; US blames Hamas for ending truce | The Times of Israel   ‘No injuries reported in series of attacks on center, south; Israel strikes Gaza, pulls out of negotiations for long-term truce; Hamas denies it initiated rocket fire, says Jerusalem torpedoing diplomatic process’

The US blames Hamas, Hamas blames Israel, Israel blames Hamas, Hamas seems none too keen on Fatah and vice versa. And everyone, of course, blames the US. As for al Qaeda and Islamic Jihad, they can carry what’s left of the can and are more than welcome to do so.

With all this blame that’s being bandied about right, left and centre, it comes as some surprise that the matter really moves very little further forward than that. A round of predictable name-calling, a decamping of negotiating teams and a lot of mutual suspicion but not much else. No one, it seems, is actually being singled out and pilloried for causing the collapse of these discussions and ceasefires. And the deadly fallout that is generated by such failures and lack of concern.

And maybe that’s been the main problem here all along.

No impartial or effective judgement on whatever happens is handed down and acted upon in any way that becomes meaningful. Those more immediately involved simply carry on doing what they are accustomed to do and the rest of us are left to observe, shake our heads in disbelief and vent our frustration as best we can. For the entire human race to have no or very marginal impact upon so longstanding a conflict seems ludicrous in the extreme. Perhaps it would be in all our interests if we were to shift up a gear on this one and take much more serious issue with what’s been going on here for generations. Or has everyone become just too lazy and self-absorbed to do anything at all?

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

At least this will be doing something; which must so much better than doing what we always seem quite prepared and able to do. Nothing.