I don't know if the war will expand beyond Gaza. But I was struck yesterday by the truth of this title of a Steve Marriott's piece in The Times: "You Don't Need to Share Your Views on Gaza".
The bald fact is that Israel has been fighting for its existence for 70+ years. And the Arabs have never at any time accepted its existence. Weeks - in fact decades - of commentary about negotiated 'solutions' etc etc is (and has always been) just politico and media blah blah. Yes, the Israelis have handled some things better than other things but whatever they did (or did not) do - nor whoever was in government or not - would have altered that fundamental (and intractable) impasse.
The awful truth is that, for Western publics and commentariats who don't have to actually fight them, wars have long since become another grim part of the media entertainment industry....like gripping horror movies and with the same insatiable audience appetite.
That there's estimated to be approximately $500bn of gas under the seabed within Palestinian and Israeli territorial waters is an important consideration when examining the build up of US-NATO naval assets in the Mediterranean, particularly when the same coalition of countries is actively seeking alternatives to Russian sources of fossil fuels.
I don't know if the war will expand beyond Gaza. But I was struck yesterday by the truth of this title of a Steve Marriott's piece in The Times: "You Don't Need to Share Your Views on Gaza".
The bald fact is that Israel has been fighting for its existence for 70+ years. And the Arabs have never at any time accepted its existence. Weeks - in fact decades - of commentary about negotiated 'solutions' etc etc is (and has always been) just politico and media blah blah. Yes, the Israelis have handled some things better than other things but whatever they did (or did not) do - nor whoever was in government or not - would have altered that fundamental (and intractable) impasse.
The awful truth is that, for Western publics and commentariats who don't have to actually fight them, wars have long since become another grim part of the media entertainment industry....like gripping horror movies and with the same insatiable audience appetite.
That there's estimated to be approximately $500bn of gas under the seabed within Palestinian and Israeli territorial waters is an important consideration when examining the build up of US-NATO naval assets in the Mediterranean, particularly when the same coalition of countries is actively seeking alternatives to Russian sources of fossil fuels.