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In December, the two main Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, agreed to form a joint committee to oversee its administration - an agreement which has so far come to nothing.

Dogged US efforts to prevent the crisis from escalating, involving presidential visits, countless diplomatic missions and the deployment of vast military resources, have all come to nothing.

Months of shuttle diplomacy by the US envoy Amos Hochstein - building on already established UN Security Resolutions on Israel and Hezbollah - have come to nothing.

This is true even if the federal probes come to nothing.

That was the situation in 2014 when a major congressional push to enact far-reaching changes to immigration law appeared tantalizingly close to bearing fruit — only to come to nothing.