Israeli missile strike in Gaza (reactions)

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Some interesting points of view. There is a piece up in LBN
about Colin Powell asking for Arafat's aid on terror that is very
Alice-in-Wonderlandy too, and should probably be down here in the
dungeon.

It will be hard to find another Palestinian interlocutor.
Who would wish to pick up such a poisoned chalice?

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''In a paradoxical sense, this gets Abbas off the hook. He has
been under pressure to do what he was unable to do. Now he has a
politically good pretext not to do it (crack down on militants). He had
been caught between a rock and a hard place until now. The hard
place had come from domestic pressure not to crack down and the
rock had come from international pressure to do so. Now, at least,
they will have to say that under the current circumstances he can't do
it. But also this exposes how weak he was to begin with.''

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''The truce was never alive, nor was the road map. The truce is a
'hudna' (ceasefire) -- it was never agreed between two sides. The
terms were set by the Palestinians.

MSNBC