I beg to differ on one statement

Submitted by There is NO Santa Claus (United States), Aug 29, 2014 at 08:37

"(Remember that the current violence started with the kidnappings of three Israeli teenagers and only one day later Hamas started to send its current round of missiles on Israel.)"

In my view, the current violence started with the conclusion of "negotiations" between the PA and Israel. Having failed to reach an agreement by the U.S. Administration's artificial deadline, Sec. of State John Kerry declared the talks failed and publicly blamed Israel. This immediately preceded the kidnappings and war.

While this war raged, the U.S. was approaching a July 20 deadline to complete its talks with Iran. Rather than concluding these talks and summarily blaming Iran, the U.S. extended the deadline. The war successfully distracted the US from the far more important Iranian nuclear enrichment talks and pushed our diplomats on their heels. This was easy for HAMAS to do given the cowardly way we blamed Israel for the failure of negotiations with the PA even as Russia became more aggressive in Ukraine. To the extent this won a reprieve for the Iranians, HAMAS was hugely successful.

The U.S. State Department is constantly distracted by a conflict that is relatively minor in scale when compared to the rest of the region. The problem this has created should be evident to most of us by now.

Regards,

There is NO Santa Claus (aka TINSC)

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