The Irish Times view on the Middle East: the risk of a wider conflict

News Snapshot:

Following Hamas’s reprehensible murders of Israeli civilians last weekend and the huge Israeli military retaliations and buildup on Gaza’s borders since then, fears are growing that an escalation of the fighting in coming days could spill over into a wider Middle Eastern war. Major diplomatic approaches to prevent that happening all confront the stubborn reality that efforts to contain the violence will also have to make renewed efforts to agree an Israel-Palestinian peace settlement as a constituent part of regional stability. Israeli leaders have concentrated on normalising relations with neighbouring states in the hope that mutual interests between them and...