{"id":794,"date":"2012-11-22T20:54:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-22T20:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2012\/11\/22\/who-cares-about-winners"},"modified":"2012-11-22T20:54:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-22T20:54:00","slug":"who-cares-about-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=794","title":{"rendered":"Who cares about \u2018winners\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>The comments immediately after the announcement of cease-fire in Gaza make me laugh \u2026 and not with joy, but with derision.<\/p>\n<p>Hamas is claiming some kind of victory in the announcement of a cease-fire brokered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the leaders of Egypt and Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Israel is making similar claims of victory.<\/p>\n<p>This all begs the question: Who cares?<\/p>\n<p>The only \u201cwinners\u201d in this are the Israelis and the Palestinians who\u2019ve been caught up in the crossfire between the Hamas terrorists who\u2019ve been shelling Israel with rockets and the Israelis who\u2019ve been responding \u2013 justifiably, in my view \u2013 with artillery and air strikes of their own.<\/p>\n<p>If there is another winner, it must be Secretary Clinton, who\u2019s about to leave office after four stellar years as the nations\u2019 top diplomat. She announced long ago she\u2019d serve one term in the Obama administration \u2013 and she\u2019s about to leave to a chorus of high praise.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Hamas and the Israelis can stop the chest-thumping and give thanks that the shelling has stopped.<\/p>\n<p>The cease-fire must hold. And as Clinton said in announcing it, the immediate end of hostilities must serve as a building block to erecting a lasting peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. <\/p>\n<p>If that\u2019s Hillary Clinton\u2019s legacy upon leaving the public stage \u2013 for now, at least \u2013 then she\u2019s earned her place in the Diplomacy Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The comments immediately after the announcement of cease-fire in Gaza make me laugh \u2026 and not with joy, but with derision. Hamas is claiming some kind of victory in the announcement of a cease-fire brokered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the leaders of Egypt and Israel. Israel is making similar claims of victory. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=794\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Who cares about \u2018winners\u2019?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}