A senior Cairo-based Hamas official said late on Wednesday there was no agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians over the extension of a 72-hour Gaza ceasefire that took effect on Tuesday.

“There is no agreement on the extension of the truce,” Moussa Abu Marzouk wrote on his Twitter feed.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4555803,00.html – 8/6/2014.

What I have seen of “malignant narcissists”, secular as well as religious, engaged in conflict is that they are all-in with their chips (as long as other people are the chips they play — and their backers, bankers, and handlers are every bit as evil as themselves).  In essence, they do not reason (why should they?), they have no off button (what would be the point if they had to modify their own aggrandizement?), and they draw destruction all around themselves (is that not glorious, grand, and romantic?).

In more constrained arenas, there’s only so much damage a nutcase of a narcissist can do — e.g., build and sink a business; make and break a Hollywood career — but in politics and in control of a fief or state, the breed is just cold bad news.

Cloaked in religion, seducing their marks with sweet words, pirating the wealth of a community, bathed in perfume and smiling kindly while blood wells up around their ankles, such seems to me the world of men who confuse themselves with God and get others to go along with them.

How bad does it get with one of these vampires and its minions inhabiting the body of your community?

(8/6/2014)

Addendum

A senior Israeli official told the BBC Israel had expressed its readiness to extend the truce under its current terms beyond its expiry on Friday.

However, a member of the Palestinian delegation at the Cairo talks, Moussa Abu Marzouk, wrote on Twitter: “There is no agreement to extend the ceasefire.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28683800 – 8/6/2014.

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