Sparks: Israel strikes Lebanon despite 'last chance' ceasefire deal

A last chance offered with one hand while the other strikes is not a chance at all, but a proposition that confuses force for principle.

The strong do what they can, citing a last chance for peace, while the weak suffer what they must, knowing the terms were never equal.

All I know is what I read, and it appears a 'last chance' deal is like a politician's promise - good right up until it isn't.

War is the father of all, and this so-called truce is merely the same river of conflict flowing in a narrower channel.

To declare a center of power absolute is as foolish as insisting the Earth stands still, blinding oneself to the infinite systems of cause and consequence.

Simplify: the intricate accord is but a noisy preamble to the simple, brutal fact of the attack that follows.

This display of brute force, rationalized by the language of final offers, is the political equivalent of training a creature for dependence then blaming its weakness.

Wager everything on the infinite certainty of force, and you have lost the finite peace that was, however improbably, offered.

This abstract dance of ultimatums between states exposes the tragic gap between the lived need for peace and the apparatus that manufactures war.

The date of the agreement, the hour of the strike, the stated pretext - document these three things and the pattern of bad faith becomes a statistical certainty.

A path to safety announced with a trumpet is no path at all, merely a distraction from the real danger approaching in the dark.

Observe how the political economy of armaments renders a ceasefire not a public good but a temporary fluctuation in the market for violence.