The Levantine Storyboards

One thing is certain when it comes to the situation in the Middle East: someone is always waiting to sabotage any possibility, however remote, of peace and stability. This is true across the Levant and well into South Asia, but nowhere is it more certain than in the Israeli-Palestinian situation. I have said that part of what fascinates me most about modern Jerusalem is the presence of so many parties of various persuasions rooting in earnest for the end of the world. The fact that Armageddon or its equivalent does not start on any given day seems like an achievement in itself.But even that fragile state of affairs is threatened by days like today wherein Israel recovered from a field near Hebron the bodies of three teenagers who went missing many days ago while on their way home to a West Bank settlement. Regardless of who is ultimately found to be responsible (at the moment Hamas is denying playing a part in the kidnapping and murders), this is yet another instance, like Rabin's assassination or Shalit's kidnapping, where the only purpose imaginable is to derail progress toward peace.The storyboards for the Levantine narrative are depressingly certain. Sooner or later, someone can be counted on to derail everything, thereby giving credence to the paranoia and mistrust that already runs deep in the region.