It has been just over one year since Hamas shattered an uneasy peace in the Middle East and launched a brutal terrorist attack against Israel.
The reverberations from that assault continue to intensify. In addition to it leading to the devastation of the Gaza Strip and ruining the lives of the Palestinian people there, Lebanon has been invaded and that country too now teeters on the brink of collapse.
To settle the conflict, diplomacy has been tried and failed — miserably, with neither Hamas nor the Israelis ready to agree to a genuine peace. Instead, both parties seek to exploit misery and hardship for their own benefit, believing that time is on its side. Those calculations are wrong. Continuing conflict will exacerbate the extraordinary human toll and threaten a wider war with potentially catastrophic consequences.
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