Diplomatic ambiguity was listed as one of three key ingredients for reaching an agreement in Cairo by Institute for National Security Studies director Amos Yadlin. A lack of clarity may lead to a deal. It is effective in the short and mid-term. It's possible that this was the theme as midnight approached on Monday. The ambiguity surrounding the decision to extend the cease-fire by another day would look like this: The proposal to build a port will be discussed later. If Israel sticks to its stance, will Hamas remain bound by the cease-fire? We don't know. It's ambiguous. Is the arrangement worthwhile for Israel? What is the significance of accepting or rejecting it in terms of relations with Egypt, the United States and the European Union? We will only know when more details are released. This style is perfectly suited to the modern world, a world turned upside down. Three Knesset members who had pledged loyalty to Israel and to its legal system -- MKs of the Balad party -- went to visit Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and the criminal former MK who fled Israel, Azmi Bishara, in Qatar, where they were greeted with trumpets at the Hamas castle. This, while Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was greeted there by harsh name-calling. Israeli journalist and political commentator Ehud Yaari said Monday evening that in a media source close to Mashaal, Abbas was referred to as "stupid" a record eight times in one article. It is an upside-down world when Abbas, who is upset with Israel -- which is his right; it is a logical complaint -- dares to set the International Criminal Court against it at a time when it is saving him each day from assassination attempts orchestrated by Hamas. It is a farce when Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh celebrate the creation of their unity government, embrace each other, and say, "My brother, my brother," and then Hamas establishes the groundwork to overthrow the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. The plans discovered by the Shin Bet date back to before the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teens, before Operation Brother's Keeper and before Operation Protective Edge. Hamas betrayed the PA during the honeymoon period of their unity. Meanwhile, Abbas wants to have his cake and eat it too. He is inciting against Israel at the United Nations, but is telling Hamas that its leaders are the ones responsible for the results of the operation in Gaza, since they were offered a cease-fire when only 70 people had been killed. Hamas is on a campaign, and if anyone benefits from it, it will be Abbas. At the same time, his neighbor, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, adamantly refuses to recognize Hamas. Presence at the Rafah crossing? Foreign money for the Gaza Strip? Only Abbas. Not Haniyeh and not Mashaal. The things that have been decided and promised are not important. Abbas knows just as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz that the enemy is a sneaky one, as revealed in past rounds of fighting. In Kibbutz Nahal Oz near the Gaza border, calm is the greatest enemy of vigilance -- since then-Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan eulogized Roy Rotenberg, who was kidnapped and killed by the Gaza border in 1956, until today.
