The Gaza Strip is under violent assault, but Roger Cohen isn’t feeling particularly outraged. He writes:

None of this is edifying. Much is abhorrent: indiscriminate Hamas rockets on Israel, Israeli killing of Palestinian civilians in ‘collateral damage.’ Yet I find myself short on moral outrage. It is all so familiar, a recurrent curse. It is a sham fight, and so doubly inexcusable. The Jews and Arabs of the Holy Land are led by men too small to effect change. Shed a tear, shed a thousand, it makes no difference.

There is no moral uproar from Cohen because the attacks are part of a recurrent tragedy for which both sides are culpable, especially the leaders. Those leaders, he argues, are comfortable with the status quo and lack the courage to make the necessary concessions to bring peace to the region.