Nothing can persuade its Arab neighbours that Israel cannot live with them in peace more than the course on which Netanyahu is currently set
Aritual is performed every time Israel starts another war, before the white phosphorus rains down, before the fear and panic of people fleeing their homes, before the footage of stunned survivors sifting through the rubble of collapsed apartment blocks.
It’s called the ceasefire ritual – a public display of hand-washing. It’s the charade of pretending that there are honest diplomats out there trying to search every avenue, stretch every sinew, to stop this bedlam from starting.
Much of it is choreographed. Other parts are improvised. But be sure about one thing: it is pantomime. It bears no relationship to reality.
Hours before Israel declared that its ground attack on Lebanon had begun, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot was vainly insisting in a media conference in Beirut that his proposed 21-day ceasefire was “still on the table”.
As he was doing so, the US, France’s co-sponsor, was briefing journalists that ceasefire talks had stopped. This position went through several iterations as the afternoon wore on, and the contradictioN.
FULL ARTICLE – https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/chaos-israel-sowing-across-middle-east-could-come-back-haunt-it
