After I had been without radio, t.v.or internet for a few hours, I just went online and saw that an assassination attempt against Hamas leader Rantisi failed to kill him. Several others were killed or wounded. For heaven's sake, how stupid can our 'leaders' get? Could Sharon just not live with the idea of not being the bad guy of international headlines for a couple of days? Was our optimism - no matter how sceptical - totally misplaced? Of course, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and all the other murderers' organizations have never made a real effort to look for reasons to kill Jews, but this attack was as badly timed as can be. If they had wanted to kill the man, the security forces should have done so long ago, not now, when if only for a few days Israel was regaining just the slightest bit of international goodwill. I feel sorry for any innocent people who were hurt or killed, not for Rantisi himself. I also feel sorry for the Israeli victims of the new wave of attacks that is undoubtedly coming, for the victims of any Israeli retaliation that will follow such a wave just as certainly, etc. etc. For the umpteenth time we have returned to square one. Today Ariel Sharon was heard before the Knesset's State Control Committee in the case of an alleged conflict of interest involving an agricultural law that benefitted him personally, and that he advocated in a telephone conversation with the director of the Israel Lands Authority. I mentioned this case earlier on in a number of postings, and after the Aqaba summit until this morning I was not sure whether I wanted Arik Sharon to be 'guilty' or 'not guilty' in this case. Now I am even not sure whether the timing of the assassinaton attempt against Rantisi and the hearing are not somehow linked. Everyone with a penchant for conspiracy theories and paranoia will not have a hard time finding inspiration here in Israel and the Middle East today.