How to end the Middle East’s agony

By Zanny Minton Beddoes Editor-in-chief. In the months since Hamas’s attack on Israel, conflict has spread across the Middle East. Our cover leader this week is based on reporting that Anton La Guardia, our diplomatic editor, and I did in Washington in recent days, with input from our colleagues in Dubai and Jerusalem. From our conversations, we learned much about the intense diplomacy going on behind the scenes to turn catastrophe into opportunity. Peace and stability in the Middle East will always be hard-won. But the world must seize this chance, because the pull towards war is unrelenting. Our cover in Asia and Europe examines the state of social media as Facebook turns 20. When I joined The Economist we focused on paper: these days we have more than 60m followers across multiple digital platforms. But, although social media are more popular than ever, social networks are dying. Our Briefing explains that, after two decades of evolution, the digital “town square” is being dug up and rebuilt. Politics is out; impersonal video feeds are in.