text:  Where does that leave room for hope? You know, John McCain used to say that it's always darkest before it goes completely black. So... We miss him every day. If you keep that in mind, it's not bad guidance for the work that we're all trying to do. But look, there's some fundamental realities that we can't escape. The fundamental realities are these. Between Gaza and the West Bank, there are somewhere over 5 million Palestinians.