When elephants fight, the old African proverb intones, it is the grass that suffers.

I think we can pretty well determine now who the big loser was in the third Gaza war: the 1.8 million Palestinians of Gaza (53 percent of whom are under the age of 18). It will take years to rebuild the ruined landscape of the Gaza Strip. Factor in the 1,800 innocents and combatants killed, the thousands wounded, the tens of thousands displaced, and the damage to homes and infrastructure, and I think it's a safe bet to conclude that Gazans lost.

As July 27's Israeli air and artillery strikes demonstrate, the deadly confrontation in Gaza is far from over. Cease-fire proposals seem to come and go. But neither side is in the mood for sustainable de-escalation; each believes there is still much to gain from continuing the fight. Or perhaps to be more accurate, both worry about losing an advantage if they call an end to the bloody proceedings.

Until I heard CNN's weekend interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and watched Bloody Sunday unfold with scores of Palestinian civilian deaths and 13 Israeli soldiers killed, I thought I had the Gaza thing pretty much figured out. It would end -- more or less -- the way the two previous movies had concluded.

In her fascinating book A History of God, Karen Armstrong posits that the reason people believe in God is because God "works for them." That is to say, God is compelling because the idea of a divine being serves a useful purpose in people's lives. That utilitarian argument may be masked beneath a deep layer of spiritual devotion -- but it's a pragmatic decision all the same.

I don't know whether the lights are burning late at Foggy Bottom or not. I suspect they are as my former colleagues there try to figure out what -- if anything -- the United States should do about the recent surge of terror and violence in the not-so Holy Land. I do know that diplomats, particularly those who have become addicted to the peace process, can't help themselves. You can bet that there are memos to the secretary of state with titles like "Defusing Israeli-Palestinian Tensions" or "How to Use the Current Crisis to Advance the Peace Process."