We tend to think that diplomacy is the stuff of striped pants and euphemistic words (Winston Churchill said it best: “Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions”) Sometimes, however, diplomacy degenerates into a childish exchange. Brazil criticized Israel for its “disproportionate” use of force in the Gaza Strip. Israel’s response was to refer to Brazil’s loss in the World Cup tournament: “This is not football. In football, when a game ends in a draw, you think it is proportional, but when it finishes 7-1 it’s disproportionate. Sorry to say, but not so in real life and under international law.” The Brazilians have yet to respond, but, admittedly, it’s hard to respond to such an irrelevant riposte.
Attempts to broker a cease-fire have thus far been unsuccessful as Israel rejected the proposal by US Secretary of State Kerry for a week-long truce, “as it stands”. Israel rejected the proposal because it believed that the truce would only give Hamas a breathing space in which it would re-arm. Hamas has rejected previous proposals because they did not include a lifting of the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile the Palestinian Authority gave approval to a protest march in the West Bank–the first such permit in almost ten years–and the protest exploded in a “day of rage” that led to three Palestinian deaths near Jerusalem.
Russia is apparently upping the ante in Ukraine. NATO asserts that Russia has massed 15,000 troops along the Ukrainian border and is sending heavy military equipment to the separatists in the eastern part of the country. Most analysts had expected the tension in the region to ease at least temporarily as a result of the downing of the Malaysian airliner. Instead, Russia seems to be escalating tensions It is difficult to anticipate what the next moves might be.
A patient who was diagnosed with the Ebola virus was forcibly removed from the hospital by relatives. The patient is now moving around Sierra Leone’s capital of 1 million people. According to Reuters, there are dozens of people who have tested positive for the disease who are moving within the general population of the city of Freetown. The security breach is a nightmare for medical personnel as the mortality rate for untreated Ebola is about 90 percent. It is hard to believe that Sierra Leone’s medical infrastructure is capable of dealing with a general outbreak of the disease.
World Politics News 
Leave a comment