Still with Hope

So Israel and Hamas won't accept the UN call for ceasefire. The BBC has a good writeup on the analysis of why both sides still want to continue fighting: see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7820680.stm but I think one very important element is missing - Israel recovering kidnapped soldier G. Schalit from Gaza. I believe Israel will stop once they find Schalit and bring him home. Hamas on the other will claim victory if the seige continues and Israel still fails to recover Schalit, after launching this extensive and massive operation that results in nothing. Each day that Israel spends inside Gaza without recovering Schalit is one step closer to political and moral disaster.

People living beyond Gaza here in the Holyland, see the horror of the war on TV, and feel the pain, but have reached the point where they just numb it out and go on with daily routine in a zombie existence; clawing at any semblance of normal life; "like a pygmy walking in his sleep, looking for his own awakening" as Gibran said.

But that doesn't end our hope for peace. Things in the Middle East take strange twists that defy any confident attempt to predict or forecast. The war will end, we are sure, and it is not far off.

And the war has spread into cyber space, with many peoples who have never even been to this land taking sides: see http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478626,00.html
There are no winners in a war; taking sides and pointing fingers will not resurrect the innocent dead. Why don't we all turn to Christ instead; the Prince of Peace who will right all wrongs?