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Today has been a particularly confusing day.  The 72-hour cease fire broke down quickly in Gaza, and the American media has decided that Hamas “broke” the cease-fire, and US President Obama blamed Hamas as well.  But the agreement was the strangest cease-fire in diplomatic history.  Apparently, the cease-fire was a cease-fire “in-place”, meaning that all military forces were to remain where they were and were not to fire against their enemies.  But the cease-fire gave Israel the right to conduct search operations for tunnels.  The incident today where two Israeli soldiers were killed and another presumably kidnapped involved Israeli forces going to a house in Rafah to search for a tunnel entrance inside the house.  According to the Israeli military (and we have no independent confirming source), Hamas soldiers emerged from a tunnel inside the house and one of the Hamas soldiers blew himself up, killing the two Israeli soldiers.

Assuming that these facts are accurate, then one can reasonably ask whether there was a cease-fire.  Allowing one side to conduct active military operations is an odd circumstance within a cease-fire.  And I am not certain how soldiers should behave when they surprise each other in the context of an active military operation.  Imagine the confusion when a fully-armed soldier enters a house and encounters another fully-armed soldier.  Can we  expect both sides to remain passive because there is a cease-fire?  Or will they react defensively to protect themselves and their colleagues?

The issue is important because Israel is using the breaking of the cease-fire as a reason to resume intense military actions in Gaza, and as testimony to the impossibility of being able to work with Hamas.  I think that if the parties involved were really interested in peace, then the breakdown of the cease-fire would have been interpreted as singularly unfortunate, but not a reason to resume fighting.

The situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate, and there really is no possibility of a genuine cease-fire for at least a few days.  Let’s hope that cooler minds will prevail.

But there is a reason for cheer.  Today is Jerry Garcia’s birthday!!!