The media seems to have been paying not much noticeable attention to how Christian church leaders, such as the World Council of Churches, have been standing "idly by as Christians perish [and] churches wither," as Malcolm Lowe points out. "Who needs the WCC any more?" he asks, and, "Would the world, let alone Christians, be better off without it?"
Khaled Abu Toameh highlights how the PLO battle for succession inside the West Bank's Fatah and the courtship by its President, Mahmoud Abbas, of the regime of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad -- backed by Iran, Hizbullah and radical Palestinian groups that oppose any peace deal with Israel -- can only harm any chances of agreeing to one.
And in the U.S., security strategy seems to have been replaced by budget exercises, as examined by Peter Huessy, so that instead of government programs being about how best to service their clients, they often seem to devolve into how to cut costs.
As Albert Einstein said, "In the universe there is nothing good or bad; only consequences."
