There's still Suez to make The Middle East strategically valuable. The Middle East has often been the world middle man of world affairs. There are advantages and disadvantages in this. It means it is never stable- it has an effect on the psychology of it's people. Many battles throughout history have been fought in the Middle East between the mountains the sea the desert the cold north. We need to create other routes around the Middle East such as Panama. They need to be controlled by stability- but what that means changes.

Dear Canem Malum,

You really are some kind of weird automaton aren't you.

I'm imagining a big red button in the middle of your forehead that someone hits and you deliver a scripted piece and as they come out your software searches for the next one progressively getting more and more tenuous as you go.

Perhaps give it a break for a bit and let your internal servers cool down.

The Guardian newspaper today sums things up rather well:

"The scenes we're seeing unfold in Israel and Gaza mark
a new chapter in the Middle East conflict. The consequences
and scale of losses are already devastating and the recent
attacks and the war that now follows is likely to shape
global politics for years to come."

US President Joe Biden is travelling to the Middle East
to meet with leaders. Unfortunately the Palestinian
leadership has backed out of any meetings due to the
recent hospital bombings.

Things are not looking very hopeful. But we can all continue
to pray for a miracle.

Well between 500 and 700 dead after the bombing of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza.

A media spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu initially posted a tweet saying "Breaking: Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas base inside a hospital in Gaza. A number of people are dead. It is heartbreaking that Hamas is launching rockets from hospital, Mosques, schools and using civilians as human shields."

However after quickly realising the death toll was horrendous the same spokesperson has deleted their tweet and is now tweeting about "The mysterious explosion in Gaza" and blaming it either on a failed rocket or Hamas doing it on purpose to get international support.

http://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/17a72nd/hananya_naftali_first_admits_to_israeli_bombing/

My goodness how quickly the lies come.

The recent bombing of the hospital in Gaza and
Israel's blocking food, water, fuel and any aid
to the Palestinians - makes it very difficult to
support what Israel is doing to supposedly "keep
it's citizens safe." Israel has used the excuse
for security now for decades while continuing in
its settlement expansions, land grabs, and its
appalling treatment of Palestinians.

The recent attack by Hamas was horrendous and
deserves world condemnation. But then so is Israel's
retaliatory tactics. They equally deserve condemnation.
The bombing of hospitals and banning of food, water,
and much needed supplies to civilians is inexcusable
and should not be condoned.

Hopefully the US President will be able to bring some
rational action to this conflict. Someone has to -
without giving a blank cheque to one side and
condemnation only to the other. Sanity needs to prevail.
Neither side is innocent here.

Hamas firing highly explosive rockets from right next to a hospital, what could possibly go wrong? A fully fueled rocket with a warhead could easily cause a huge explosion, and these homemade Katyusha rockets are not the most reliable. Also, Hamas lies continuously.

This war is entirely the fault of Hamas. Hamas started the war and the Israelis will finish it and eliminate these animals.